You can block your tweets, but you can’t block your conscience – Latsot adds to the PZ smears

by Michael Nugent on November 9, 2014

Yesterday Latsot, a pseudonymous occasional guest blogger at FreeThought Blogs, called me a champion of horrible people, a monster, actually crazy, and a weird obsessive crazy person, after I responded to his open letter to me that he had published on his blog. He also called Ashling O’Brien, Dublin Chairperson of Atheist Ireland, a lying wanker and told her to fuck off.

This is the type of strange discourse that I have to endure when asking PZ Myers and his associates (who are each individually responsible for their own behaviour) to withdraw and apologise for their false allegations that I defend rapists, and their previous pattern of older smears against other people in recent years. Here are some more examples from yesterday:

Latsot also told Ashling O’Brien (Dublin Chairperson of Atheist Ireland) to fuck off. When Ashling asked him to clarify a comment, Latsot replied: “Oh, wasn’t I clear? I meant that I have no intention to ever speak to lying wankers like you. Clear enough?”

Latsot told Richard Reed (who Latsot had previously called a rapist then said it was “an unwise rhetorical device”) that he is one of the most horrible people in the world, and the most horrible shit he knows of.

I asked Latsot to reinstate the apology he had previously made and withdrawn for saying I defend rapists. Latsot first denied apologising and withdrawing that statement, then when I showed him that he had done so, he said that the allegation was inconsequential.

Bizarre as these conversations are, I think it is important that PZ and his associates are held accountable for their smears and misrepresentations of the atheist movement and individual atheists. Here is yesterday’s Twitter exchange, so that you can make up your own mind about the latest smears.

1. Conversation between me and Latsot

Latsot – My final word on @micknugent and his self-indulgent bleating http://lookatthestateofthat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/oh-michael.html

Me – I realise you are trying to be reasonable in this, but you undermine that with talk of self-indulgent bleating. And I realise that you are sincere, but you don’t seem to understand how out of touch with reality your beliefs about this are.

Latsot – I suppose I’d better copy this to @ micknugent. I guess it’s something like an open letter. I hope it’s an end to it. http://lookatthestateofthat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/oh-michael.html

Me – You hope it’s an end to it? Your naivety is as charming as PZ’s. Actions have consequences. They don’t go away by ignoring them.

Latsot – Yeah, they do.

[Note: Latsot wrote in his open letter to me that “One side constantly reinforces you because it likes what you say, whatever you say since you’re now a champion of horrible people.”]

Me – You now say I am “a champion of horrible people.” You should stop thinking of people as horrible. That reduces your empathy.

Latsot – Perhaps you should stop telling people what they should do.

[Note: Latsot wrote in his open letter to me that “I can tell you that some of the people commenting on your blog have made entirely untrue and public accusations about me.”]

Me – Please give me details of any untrue and public accusations about you in comments on my blog and I’ll address them.

Latsot – But I didn’t say that, did I? Disingenuous.

Me – Also, can you please reinstate the apology that you made, and then withdrew, for your untrue smear that I defend rapists?

Latsot – I never made that apology as you know perfectly well. I explained what I meant.

Me – Not only did you apologise, you also withdrew the statement. Then a few days later you repeated it. Please withdraw it again.

Me – Yes, PZ did that as well. Smeared, then, when asked to be accountable, blocked. You can’t block your conscience though.

Latsot [over several tweets to several people] – Holy cocksucking christ Michael Nugent seems to be actually crazy. I’ve had to block him because he can’t get over a spat we had a few weeks ago. He needs to be universally loved and he’ll hunt down, threaten and harass anyone who doesn’t love him. Ooh, lots of people are smearing me. But I won’t go on and on and on and fucking on about it. Michael Nugent cries and cries about people mildly criticising him but doesn’t care when his fans say horrible things about me. Good luck, Michael. Love Nugent all you like. I don’t. But you are accusing me of things I’ve never said in Nugent’s defense. Here you go, Nugent fans, I will not answer your blitheringly stupid questions and you will be automatically be blocked if you try. Here you fucking are, Nugent. These are your people, you are welcome to them. hey Mick, take a look at what your friends are saying about me. Mick Nugent’s friends are not very polite to me. He doesn’t seem to care. What a surprise. You are the people Michael Nugent cares about. Nice work, Michael.

2. Conversation between Ashling and Latsot

Latsot – I’ve had to block him because he can’t get over a spat we had a few weeks ago.

Ashling – but you tagged him about a blog that you had written about him, he was responding to you bringing it all up again.

Lastot – And I answered him. But I had no obligation to.

Ashling – Well I know if I prefer not to talk to someone on twitter I tend not a) blog about them and b) tag them to tell them about that blog. if I do either of these things I then expect it is reasonable to have to discuss things with them.

Latsot – good for you, that’s an outstanding if completely random ethical stance. I have exactly no interest in talking to you, though. I am not interested in the idiotic things you have to say.

Ashling – Random? I don’t follow your logic. If I tagged someone the blog was not about and tried to converse with them, that would be random.

Lastot – He can talk there to me, if he likes.

Ashling – Speaking of your blog, I posted a request for links to the alleged smears about you that you say @micknugent allowed on his blog.

Latsot – Yeah, Mick is right. Nobody on his side is ever sinister, horrible or irrelevant.

Ashling – Can you provide me a link to where @ micknugent says “nobody on his side is ever sinister, horrible or irrelevant” please? thanks

Latsot – No. i just don’t care. Love Mick all you like. Understand that some people don’t.

Ashling – sorry, is that ‘no you can’t provide’ or ‘no you don’t care to provide’?

Latsot – Oh, wasn’t I clear? I meant that I have no intention to ever speak to lying wankers like you. Clear enough?

Ashling – Being a ‘lying wanker’ would be difficult as I am not a penis bearer. ‘lying frigger’ would be more anatomically correct.

Latsot – Do you understand what a false dichotomy is? Yes or no?

Ashling – Yes I do understand what a false dichotomy is. Do you?

Latsot – Yes. Why are you even talking to me? Well you are so much smarter than me, We both know you’ll pretend I said whatever shit you want so don’t come back here.

Ashling – I don’t think I’m smarter than you, you really shouldn’t put yourself down like that. I won’t pretend, I’ll ask question for clarification. I’m not pretending, this is your blog, isn’t it? “Michael. I can tell you about smears. I can tell you that some of the people commenting on your blog have made entirely untrue and public accusations about me. Those are smears.” All I am asking you is to provide links to the alleged smears that you say @ micknugent has allowed on his blog, thanks

Latsot – I probably won’t answer any questions you have. I simply don’t agree that your beloved leader is either beloved or a leader.

Ashling – to go back to my original question, will you provide links to the alleged smears about you that you say @micknugent allowed on his blog?

Latsot – But I didn’t say that. I said that people on his blog lied about me. Stop pretending otherwise. Here you go, Nugent fans, I will not answer your blitheringly stupid questions and you will be automatically be blocked if you try.

3. Conversation between Richard Reed and Latsot

[Note: Here is a previous exchange between Richard and Latsot]

Richard – Wow. @ latsot redefines rape so he can smear @ micknugent.

Latsot – Surely you are the one redefining rape to not be something you want it to be? I’m saying rape is rape.

Richard – so who are the rapists that @ micknugent is defending?

Latsot – You are one.

Richard – I’m a rapist?

Latsot – You tell me.

[Note: here is yesterday’s exchange]

Latsot – Michael Nugent cries and cries about people mildly criticising him but doesn’t care when his fans say horrible things about me.

Richard – You need to learn the difference between criticism and smears “He provides a haven for rapists” is a smear, so is “You are a rapist”

Latsot – I don’t need to do anything you say. You are one of the most horrible people in the world.

Richard – I’d love to know why you think that! Am I worse than President Assad of Syria?

Latsot – You are the most horrible shit I know of. Is that enough?

Richard – Call me pedantic, but there’s a big difference between people you know and the world! I’d still love to know why you hate me.

Latsot – I don’t hate you, Richard. But we can all look at the horrible things you’ve written about me and others, can’t we?

Richard – And they are?

Kim Swales – I’ve just gone back a few weeks in Richard Reed’s timeline, nothing horrible there. Not sure I even saw a gratuitous “fuck” in it. Comes back to the same old. Make accusations, you should be prepared to provide evidence – or apologise & withdraw.

Latsot may be a few crayons short of a box as they say but Latsot isn’t PZ and PZ can scarcely be held responsible for Latsot’s tweets any more than you are responsible for what anyone other than you post.

You also say that PZ and his associates should be held accountable for their smears which I agree with but mentioning PZ in a post about Latsot made it sound to me like you think PZ should be held accountable for Latsot’s smears. Thanks for clarifying that is not what you mean.

In my experience, the people you wish to apologize and be civil never have and, never will. Understand that they believe they are the arbiters of what is truth in the atheist world.

Dare, dare to disagree, have another point of view, or point out one of their many hypocritical stances, or even show them their fallacious logic and you’re then defamed and piled upon with their sycophants (like Latsot).

I applaud you for continuing to air the despicable way in which some respond to any form of criticism. This is not skepticism when someone refuses to look at their beliefs and modify them when they are shown to be incorrect.

Dale, there are many smears over several years, and everyone is individually responsible for their own behaviour.

That said, the specific smear that I defend rapists was initiated by PZ, and then repeated by others. Having survived fifty years of life without being accused of defending rapists, and then suddenly being accused of this by several people in quick succession after PZ initiated it, I think it is reasonable to assume that the other smears would not have happened had PZ not crossed that line.

What amazes me is that PZ’s goons respond so hysterically to anybody who is actually standing up to their poison and their artificial drama. Makes me think they got away with their smear campaigns for the longest time, uncontested and without any real life consequences.

“Makes me think they got away with their smear campaigns for the longest time, uncontested and without any real life consequences.”

Peezees mighty banhammer – the mightiest banhammer on the internet -has kept them insular and that insularity has apparently driven the lot of them nuts (look at latsot’s twittershit). It must be something in their collective bathwater.

+LeSchlumb – The surrogates, or sycophants are desperately seeking the approval of PZ & Co. Their entire identity revolves around receiving accolades for their smears. These are people that do not have the ability to think for themselves and look to people like PZ for what they should be thinking and discussing. The more violent the rhetoric, the more they believe they will be approved.

They don’t however understand that none of them will ever be a part of PZ and Co.’s inner circle. they’re just being used.

I’ll go one step farther than MN with regard to PZ’s responsibility for the smears by the Horde, including Latsot (and I hope that a few of you enjoy the irony).

PZ’s blog provides a haven for those who smear. Folks who post and tweet baseless smears (against certain people) are free to post on PZ’s blog without any fear of being called out for their actions. Even more, they will often be rewarded for such, albeit mostly by other members of the Horde, instead of the blog’s controller. But, again, what makes PZ’s blog a haven for those who smear is that those who smear can feel entirely safe from any negative consequences of their behavior while reading and posting on PZ’s blog (assuming, of course, that they smeared the right/wrong people).

(In contrast, for example, MN’s blog is not a haven for those who smear. I am quite confident that if Latsot were to identify any comments here that were actual smears, MN would act – either to remove the smears, request an apology, or demand evidence [in some combination].)

Why does this matter and how does this make PZ in any way responsible for the smears of someone like Latsot, especially when posted or tweeted somewhere other than PZ’s blog? Recall, first, that PZ’s blog is a haven for those who smear. If those who smear had no havens, they would be much less likely to smear. Knowing that you can do something as unethical as post or tweet a baseless smear and still have a place to go and post and socialize, while being protected from rightful criticism of your smears by the moderating policies of the blog’s controller, is something that prevents the normal social process from extinguishing the smears. Providing a haven for those who smear is to protect those who smear from the warranted and needed criticism that would prevent future smears. This enables those who smear to continue their unethical and unacceptable behavior. This, in turn, makes the controller of the haven at least partly responsible for all future smears posted or tweeted by those who use or have used the haven provided.

tl/dr; I hold PZ responsible for the behavior of the Horde because PZ’s blog provides a haven for the members of the Horde who engage in unethical behavior

LATSOT
‘Some people – including me – think you’ve done lots of good things for the atheist movement but have utterly disgraced yourself by tacitly endorsing horrible views and insisting that criticisms are smears.’

CARR
So Latsot claims that PZ Myers saying Nugent is providing ‘ a haven for rapists’ is not a smear?

And all Latsot can do is claim Nugent ‘tacitly’ endorses horrible views.

In other words, Latsot can’t actually produce any evidence that Nugent really does endorse horrible views.

Not one word of evidence for this ‘tacit’ endorsement,

Latsot had not one quote of anything Nugent had ever written in his ‘open letter.’

While, of course, Michael produce vast quantities of documentation to prove there is a systematic campaign of malicious libel against him.

We see more malicious , libellous smears from people who cannot produce a single word of evidence to back them up.

Their smears are designed to maliciously defame the reputation of any people who point out the way they are behaving badly.

Awww C’mon Michael, you’re supposed to play the game! Latsot is very cross and angry with you because you won’t respond in kind so that he can collect his Social Justice Warrior points and gain the recognition he so richly deserves. It’s incredibly frustrating for him. Latsot’s whole identity and sense of self is at stake here! For SJW’s this is gained by proxy through recognition by other SJW’s, (preferably from the top branches in the SJW canopy), mostly for vitriolic and smearing attacks on these deemed ‘un-persons’ or Suppressive Persons in Scientology speak.

This process is on display in Myers recent post entitled ,i>”Two white dudes spend an hour talking about how racist and sexist it is to criticize other white dudes.”</i?

In it he blows the dog whistle on Peter Boghossian and Stefan Molyneux setting them up for attack. The Horde duly obliges……

Anthony K: What a couple of fucking low-bar morons.

Gregory in Seattle: “Patting each other on the back.” You are using that phrase euphemistically, yes? Because it sounded like something else that dudebros like to do.

Sili: Did Bogosity ever study with Colin McGinn? Sounds like they’d get on like a house on fire. Forgive me for wanting them to get on in a house on fire.

￼John Horstman: Odd, I had always learned as a child that phrases like “loathsome shitweasel” and “preening narcissistic fuckwit” were adult-only. On that basis, saying, “Molyneux is a loathsome shitweasel and Boghossian is a preening narcissistic fuckwit; both should be marginalized from any position of recognition or authority and then roundly ignored for the rest of time,” is necessarily part of an adult conversation – an adult-only conversation, in fact.

Hank_Says: These two douchebuckets should hook up with Owen & Aurini. The ensuing slimy, ham-fisted, back-slapping circle-jerk would go on indefinitely and noone would ever have to hear from them ever again.

Jason: Please send serendipitous meteor down upon these two ingrown dickhairs. They are the worst people ever to people.

All these people get recognition and tacit approval of the blog owner for their dutiful response in mounting the attack and in reinforcing the SJW party line as a justified true belief. Familiar territory by now.

Ironically, Myers describes it perfectly himself, though of course he is referring to Boghossian and Molyneux in this comment, unaware that it so perfectly reflects The Horde….

And really, that’s what it’s all about: reciting cliches at each other without thought, repeating bogus accusations we’ve all heard a thousand times before. These are not people who think very deeply about much of anything.

You’ll have noticed, Michael, the strange mirroring of accusations in evidence on either side of the rift? It is a very striking feature of it. Perhaps one we should put a spotlight on in another post sometime? [Aneris?]

The thing is, one side values epistemic knowledge based on evidence. The other side manufactures belief justified by ideology and confuses this with knowledge. Another issue is that they are required to have what they consider to be justified true beliefs in order to be a part of the in-group. Voldemort is required to cast spells, etc etc.

So latsot’s attitude is that he should be allowed to say what he wants and not have any adverse response. It requires MN’s patient and clear technique of holding people to their allegations to expose this as bizarre behaviour.

I don’t know how anyone who is on “their side” could read those exchanges and not be embarrassed about Latsot’s part of it; not see that the man is flailing around like crazy, making claims and refusing to back them up, advancing and immediately retreating, just… well, behaving with wild unreason. He flat-out called Richard Reed a rapist and then, when asked to confirm that with the question “I’m a rapist?” replies “You tell me”. And he has the gall to accuse Michael of “acting like a twelve-year-old”!

I’m going to be very honest and admit that those tweeter conversations made me laugh. Really, it’s so pathetically absurd and dishonest on Latsot’s part that my brain may have decided the best way to deal with it is internal lulz and mockery.

Myers has a great deal of responsibility in how his sycophants act. He has shown them the way to do things as deemed correct by himself and his friends.

Michael, Ashling and Richard not letting go is the best way to address these cretins (yes, ableist, I know, but at this point I have to wonder if it’s not an actually accurate prediction.)

At this point, the nicest thing I can say about PZ and co. is that they seem to approach the world from the point of view of an artist. Meaning, in their minds, something is true based on how beautiful it is. It’s the only explanation I can think of for the way they spend so much time trying to come up with beautiful insults, and so little time coming up with beautiful evidence. It’s as though they believe that if the insult is beautiful enough, it becomes true. Ergo, “Michael Nugent is an asshole” may be rather boring, but “Michael Nugent is a lying shitweasel”…wow, that’s art. Must be true.

To the extent that a blogger encourages a distinct norms in their comments and among their commenters, they are having an effect upon the larger culture. If they encourage baseless smears, pointless personal attacks, and gratuitous call-outs, they have no business calling themselves humanist.

Latsot’s open letter is a joy to behold. Quoting Plain words from memory: “Like some appallingly bad poem, it acquires a weird beauty of its own.” Latsot has recklessly defied syntax, semantics and sense in a battle that could have been epic, had defeat not come so swiftly.

Some quotations from the comments:

You said: “And for fucks sake stop crying about smears.”

I thought victim-blaming was anathema to those who are truly interested in social justice. Does this mean you are also OK with telling a rape victim to stop crying and get over it?

I, and several others, repeatedly asked you to provide any evidence whatsoever for the claims put forward in your previous post. You did not. Hence, you are not criticising, but smearing.

Just allow yourself to seriously, deeply, honestly consider the possibility that you have misunderstood and mischaracterized Michael’s views and actions because you are really making yourself look very bad here and that reflects poorly on all of the causes you champion as well. Shouldn’t you put your own ego aside for the good of social justice?

On the difference between criticism and smearing, one might criticise MN for writing an article with which you disagree by saying ‘I disagree with you and here are my reasons,’ but one smears him by saying ‘You provide a haven for harassers, misogynists and rapists.’ The former addresses the arguments in question, whilst the latter does not. It’s not a subtle difference and should be apparent to all.

You, like PZ Myers, want to make unsupported defamatory claims and run away, blaming your victim for demanding that you either support your claims or retract them and apologize.

I personally have seen no smears or untruths spoken against you. I have seen people amazed at your behaviour towards Michael, but no unpleasant allegations about you. What am I missing?

An here’s Latsot’s response to the questions posed to him and to the repeated requests for evidence:

Don’t you get the feeling when PZ announces the day’s subject for hate and they all start baying and trying to outdo each other in invective (what have they got against Mustelidae?) that you’re reading a lost chapter from Animal Farm? One that Orwell decided was too over-the-top to be believable so it got edited out.
Plainly the circus ringmaster who directs these events is responsible for the smears he incites, just as a conductor leads an orchestra. Latsot wouldn’t have attempted to insult Michael if he weren’t trying to win points with PZ and his flock. Unfortunately he doesn’t have the wits to carry it through and has taken his ball home in tears. BTW, Latsot, that’s not a smear, that’s a criticism.

Also, I agree with BlueShiftRhino. Myers is at least partly responsible for what the commenters at his blog do elsewhere on the internet. Obviously there are limits to that responsibility, but he has cultivated these traits in them, and set them loose.

I don’t think blame is a zero sum game. It’s perfectly possible to hold the person who initiates a smear responsible for the later consequences while also holding those who repeat that smear responsible for doing so.

If Myers hadn’t made the smear Lostit (I like that, I’m stealing it) would not be repeating it but Lostit’s parroting the smear is entirely down to himself.

For a couple of years I have pointed out how dishonest and vulgar the likes of Latsot (and his buddy Oolon) are. I’m glad I can shout out loudly I TOLD YOU SO!

Latsot represents the logical outcome of swallowing FTB tropes and behavior codes – a serial fibber, and a smearing little shite. I knew folk like Latsot at school. They would always hang around with the school bully, sniggering as the bully causes mayhem, but just sticking enough in the background never to get in trouble. That is not possible for Latsot now. He has been thoroughly exposed as a nasty piece of work. It should be noted that PZ and Ophelia Benson still seem to think very highly of him. Naturally, he’s “their boy”.

No, I don’t think that “lostit” is a smear. At worst it’s a gibe but surely it’s a valid criticism – Latsot does indeed give all the appearances of someone suffering from some form of cognitive dissonance, who appears to have “lost the plot”. This is apparent from his constant post-hoc rationalisations, denials, obfuscations and inevitable self-contradictions.

Having engaged with Latsot a few times now I feel I owe him acknowledgement for one thing – he is at least prepared to respond, albeit on a very rudimentary and often times bizarre level. Or at least he was until the perfunctory succession of ‘fuck offs’ in the last couple of days.

Unlike PZ Myers, who is doing his usual turtling in the hope that Michael will simply give up and go away. Latsot has been left holding the baby, although I suspect he grabbed it rather than hanging around waiting for PZ to throw it to him. His continual re-engagement suggests a desire for his 30 seconds in the spotlight more than any over-arching white knighting for PZ.

The problem is that, far from looking like he is owning the stage, he comes across as a rabbit caught in the headlights, frequently scurrying away when the logic gets too much, but unable to resist another peek.

And at every peek he produces yet more slurs, slander and unfounded accusations. I think he has spent too long mollycoddled in the American FTB style of speak first and never give a thought to the consequences, he has forgotten that in Europe you can be held to account for the false things you say about other people.

Well, according to his confused logic, he agrees that PZ and Ophelia are “rapists”, since they both provide a safe haven for a child rapist (Ogvorbis). Ironically, Latsot’s “logic” is copied from PZ, who seems to think that THEY are immune from others using their own “rape apology” logic against them.

For example, in the last few days, Latsot was growing mentally frustrated at the notion that some people regard him, PZ and Ophelia as “rape apologists” because of the arguments put forward by THEM. He was actually crying about “smears” while smearing innocent people with his convoluted argument.

It’s like watching a kid who does not know how to have a conversation with anything other than an echo or their imaginary friend. If Latsot wants to be an adult he is going to have to learn that dissent, and even criticism, is not smearing. And if he wants to interface with skeptics he is going to have to learn to back up allegations with evidence.

Well, they have the blogs they want. They ban anyone who won’t accept their inherent righteousness and superiority until the only voices available are the only voices allowed, and all those voices only agree with each other.

I have considered that but his blog claims he’s a scientist. Does anyone know how long Latsot has been posting?

Well, his first blog post dates from October, 2009. If he were 14 now, he would have been 9 then. Unlikely, because in that first post he uses the word “speculate,” a word that people with Latsot’s reasoning ability usually learn in their 60’s

I presume ‘The Horde’ called out Anthony K’s ableist slur? Or is Anthony K a bit like Rebecca Watson? Immune from the charge of ableism – the same charge that is often thrown around by the #FTBullies at others.

Jason at Pharyngula: Please send serendipitous meteor down upon these two ingrown dickhairs

“Ingrown dickhairs”? And these people moan at the language used at the Slymepit! Amazing.

PS – Notice how the hate for Peter Boghossian has suddenly increased? You know why? It’s because Boghossian was instrumental in the exposure of charlatan CJ Werleman, whose most recent MO was basically abusing and hectoring “new atheists” (aka the bad atheists) such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins as waycists and saycists, as per the FTB rulebook. Ophelia Benson was particularly upset over his downfall. I can see why, for OB, PZ and company may well have a fear in the back of their minds that their reputations are headed the same way. It just won’t be such a spectacular and quick fall from grace…..but it will be painful….and we will be watching.

I must admit this did occur to me too when I was engaged in a surreal turn-and-turn-again Twitter exchange with him/her. I began to feel a bit guilty at the thought that Latsot might just be a child who has got out of her depth. Does anyone know? The insistence that a request to back up her claims is an outrage, a threat, beyond the pale does seem very teenagey.

In a newer post Myers again blows the dog whistle on Richard Dawkins in his post entitled “Quit Poking Me With Reality”.

True to form, the Horde respond with the usual smearing insults, (I can’t be bothered to list them), and Myers in the oped, (and the commentariat), attempt to give Richard a lesson in privilege because, as we know, Richard is privilege blind and understands nothing about the concept, poor chap.

In the comment section at number 9 however, Seven of Mine: Shrieking Feminist Harpy provides in invaluable lesson in privilege for Richard that should enable even him to understand the concept. I know it’s helped me enormously so I’m going to quote it so you can all be helped too….

“An analogy that I like for explaining privilege is left- vs. right-handedness since it’s obviously less emotionally fraught than race or gender. The world is built for the convenience of right-handed people. If someone is thinking about the best way to design a tool or device of some sort, they’re thinking with right-handedness in mind. If you’re left-handed, there are dozens of things you have to think about that would never occur to a right-handed person. If you’re a student, is there a left-handed desk available? If there’s not, you probably end up with a tender groove somewhere on your wrist where your arm was hanging off the edge of the desk as you wrote. Is there a pair of left handed scissors available? If not, is there a right-handed person willing to cut this thing for me? When I was a kid and wanted to play softball, I had to learn to throw right-handed because we couldn’t find a lefty baseball glove in my size that my parents could afford. When I go out to eat with a group, I have to make sure nobody is sitting to my left so we’re not constantly bumping elbows as we eat. In school, the outside edge of my left hand was almost always smudged with either pencil lead or ink because, when you’re lefty, you drag your hand over what you’ve already written as you write. A right-handed person could go through their entire life having never considered any of these things. And that’s privilege. The ability to just not ever have to think about certain things that members of other groups have to deal with on a daily basis.”

Michael Nugent would have keep track of every commenter elsewhere, and make an assessment if such a commenter is also wanted on his blog based on their participation at other places. Alternatively, Michael could follow the advice of PZ Myers and his faction and simply ban people by association. Certainly a lot easier, it would still require that he keeps an excel sheet open and adds all names that commented, and then performs searches on each to determine if these names show up in “dubious” context, like posting on certain forums like the Slymepit. Then he would ban those people from his blog, simply for having an account somewhere else.

Since PZ Myers and the gang demand this routine of everyone, and since we assume for the moment that they are right with their ideas, we can also assume that it would be okay to make an open register of evil people. Thereby, the Good People would not have to repeat the cumbersome process over and over again. If PZ Myers, or Latsot are right and it was generally accepted, then keeping such a public blacklist would simply arise as a by-product and hardly anyone could have a problem with it.

Let us ignore for the moment that any systemic change will make the whole system rebalance. If you could ostracize someone just because an identical name shows up on a certain forum, it could be used to remove anyone from discussion by just making a (fake) account.

Now, how do we know what counts as the mark of the devil? Of course, we know that already too. If PZ Myers and gang think that some group is evil, it shall be so. Hence, it would be best to hand over the blacklist-keeping to PZ Myers and faction who know best who is evil. It’s logical after all. Someone has to maintain the list, so that the mistakes Michael Nugent right now aren’t repeated anymore. He would just have to look up the list, and ban accordingly, or if someone notifies him that a commenter’s name is also listed, Michael Nugent would have to comply and ban the person.

We see the contours of a great Social Justice Utopia already take shape in a very nice fashion! Featuring blacklists, formalized denunciation, a leadership that indeed is the arbiter and more.
There was another fifth of November recently, and it’s a good reminder for “V for Vendetta”. PZ Myers and his gang look very much like the Norsefire regime there. Of course you will maintain that this is hyperbole. They are just a few bloggers. They don’t have real power. It’s just the internet. Nobody cares about the small US/internet atheist-skeptics movement. And so on.

To me the ideas and values as expressed by them are independent of such considerations. They are taught as values to a new generation of atheist-skeptics and they are accepted as mandatory and morally good. I don’t see anyone of them having scruples or even attempts to put everything into perspective.

A few have pointed out that the FreeThoughtBloggers look like a cult. We all grapple for explanations. What is true, however, is that their tactics are reminiscent of Scientology’s “Fair Game” when it comes to outsiders.

Publicising clear names and employer information of a target on a well-read blog (as PZ Myers did) was viewed as an invite to harassment before. And smearing someone’s reputation by bringing them into context with rape is pretty much the worst smearing possible. Calling Latsot an imbecile isn’t a smear by contrast.

Let’s close the circle. PZ Myers and his faction hate 4chan, which was often associated with the Slymepit (true, at times it has some 4chan, now 8chan qualities). 4chan activists adopted the Guy Fawkes mask seen in the “V for Vendetta” film and used this to protest Scientology. The reason was that Scientologists used to film protestors, find their identity and then harass them. In the film version, the people mask themselves to stand up against the Norsefire fascists.

I put many of these associations and analogies into the Scarlet Letter series I wrote last year. Here’s the Fifth Part “Remember the V” that illustrates some of the (ideas) history here.

If nothing else, this is an interesting experiment detailing the behaviour of a ‘Pharyngulan’ outside of its natural habitat, in particular when its support mechanisms (in particular PZM’s Banhammer) are taken away and it has to fend for itself in the wild.

So far, the results are not encouraging. The Pharyngulan seems to retreat into a persecution fantasy (Latsot), or becomes extremely timid (see Sally Strange’s Twitter timeline), or cocoons itself away from the rest of the internet (Oolon’s Blockbot).

There seems to be no hope of saving this rather bizarre creature, except maybe as a zoological exhibit somewhere in Morris, Minnesota.

“An analogy that I like for explaining privilege is left- vs. right-handedness since it’s obviously less emotionally fraught than race or gender.

Shit analogy. Left-handed people are freaks of nature; we allow them to share this world only because we’ve gone soft.

I’m tired of hearing about privilege. The latest shit is piling on people for being intelligent. No, really, some guy on Atheism Plus said it was great to be able to talk to intelligent people and they laid into him for ableism.

Intelligence used to be something to admire or aspire to; now it’s an axis of privilege.

Read a book and you might as we’ll be using skin-lightening cream.

Well, fuck that. I don’t ask for favours because I’m autistic and I’m not going to apologise if I’m smarter than someone else either. I didn’t deal the cards, I’m just playing the hand I was given.

The worlds getting more like Rob Grant’s novel Incompetence every day:

Bad is the new good.

In the not too distant future the European Union enacts its most far reaching human rights legislation ever. The incompetent have been persecuted for too long. After all it’s not their fault they can’t do it right, is it? So it is made illegal to sack or otherwise discriminate against anyone for being incompetent.

The Pharyngulan seems to retreat into a persecution fantasy (Latsot), or becomes extremely timid (see Sally Strange’s Twitter timeline), or cocoons itself away from the rest of the internet (Oolon’s Blockbot).

I find it quite strange that Pharyngulites and Bensonites have shown no interest in participating in this discussion. Apart from a couple of initial comments from Sally Strange and Tony, and a few more from theophontes and Ariel, their absence is remarkable. If they had evidence to support Myers’s or Latsot’s claims, they have every opportunity to exhibit it here. Why don’t they? Why doesn’t Myers post a truly irrefutable account of the evidence that supports his smears? He’s a scientist: he should be able to gather the necessary data and end all this back an forth for good. Why hasn’t Ophelia posted anything worth reading on this matter? Weird…

Matt: I’m a southpaw, but I don’t whine about it all goddamn day long.tina:I’m a lefty!

You people make me sick.

So your mousemat’s on the ‘wrong’ side – that’s no excuse for loafing around on welfare all day, injecting ‘marijuana’ or whatever you call it these days directly into your eyeballs and grooming right handed girls just because they’re easy.

Well, I had a good look around Latsot’s sites and it seems you are right that he is not in fact a child. Which makes his petulant behaviour all the more puzzling. He has the Oh Michael article up at both of his sites even though it has nothing to do with his work (one of his sites is stated on his about-page as being where we can read about his work).

He says about himself:

My main interest and first love is science. Any science. Not just the results of science but the process of doing it and the environment in which it happens. This is probably what fuels my enthusiasm for skepticism, since nothing riles me more than wilful ignorance of something that could just be tested.

Say what? None of this shows up in his tweets or his rants about Michael. I haven’t seen him “test” any statements.

tina wow, that’s quite a find you have there in Shrieking Feminist Harpy! “If you’re a student, is there a left-handed desk available?” I don’t recall seeing a right-handed desk… In my experience a desk is basically a table with a box on top, the lid of the box set to slope down from back to front. Maybe that is my rightest privilege talking.

@Carrie 77
In many classrooms in the US, the desks are single-student units consisting of a chair and a surface – the “desk part” – attached to it. The desk part usually attaches to either the left or right side of the chair (but not both, so that the student can use the other side to actually get in the chair!) – this also provides more surface on the side that is being blocked off. A right-handed desk refers to one with that connection and extra surface on the right, which provides a right-handed student a place to rest her elbow while writing. An armrest of sorts. A left-handed desk is obviously the mirror image of that. Obviously sitting in a desk that doesn’t match your preferred hand is generally more uncomfortable than sitting in a desk that does match, but what seems to be overlooked is that even at the worst case, it’s a little more comfortable than sitting in a desk without an attachment on either side, i.e. one without the armrest. Of which plenty exist as well.

In many classrooms in the US, the desks are single-student units consisting of a chair and a surface – the “desk part” – attached to it.

I know those contraptions, and they are unusable whichever their handedness. They are the kind of invention that should be punishable by death, or by having to sit on one while watching a 3-hour PowerPoint presentation by Myers, with 564 slides covered in bulleted lists in 6 point Comic Sans.

I can see no purpose for those chairs except allowing the school to save money by cramming more students in each room, and because they are cheap compared with tables or benches. They should be banned, if not on health and safety grounds, at least on aesthetic ones.

I think standard scissors might me some of the most uncomfortable devices for lefties. Thankfully some companies do manufacture scissors designed for left-handed people.

I’m a righty in writing, music-playing, throwing…well, most stuff, really. But I’m a goofy in skate/snow-boarding, lefty/righty when it comes to eating (I use my right hand to fork and my left hand to cut. My covers never change hands, and I sometimes find it ridiculously inefficient when my friends or family use their knife righty to cut then switch their covers to fork it up).

Latsot works at Leeds University? Wonder if he would appreciate someone getting into contact with his employers informing them of his behaviour and smears?

Just joking of course. I will leave all that to the #FTBullies, for that is their forte.

BTW, has anybody noticed the vile Vita Brevi has been sprouting her hatred on Twitter? She keeps using the term “truth” in the same way religious people and troofers use it. When I pointed out her logic infers that she thinks various bloggers at FTB protect a child rapist (Ogvorbis), she got all angry!

I prefer “Harrison Bergeron”, short, and to the point, and FTB/Skepchicks et al are only arguing over who gets to be Diana Moon Glampers.

Had been thinking about that story myself:

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Omg, so by working there he is supporting an institution which educates serial killers. Therefore Latsot is clearly helping to provide a haven for serial killers. Ok, serial killer then – singular. No wait, killerS because other serial killers might use Leeds university (even if they actually don’t).

Incidentally I went to the same university as Nick Leeson. It didn’t seem to interfere with my accountancy career. So it seems even the accountancy profession is less willing to damn people by association than PZ Myers….

I’m left handed. After a long trial-and-error process I learned how to use standard scissors, because annoying as they might be, they’re much cheaper, and much easier to find, than left-handed scissors.

People deal with minor inconveniences like this in many ways, mostly by making an effort to tolerate them. If you’re not too oversensitive, it’s not hard to find your way around the minor annoyances of everyday life. And even if you’re oversensitive, there are ways to ease up, stop hurting and move on.

Some instances of “oppression” or “lack of privilege” are actually just petty complaints that SJWs love to throw around to provide evidence to their oppression narrative. Others are legitimate grievances that are blown out of proportion.

And then there are a few which can be called oppressive with a straight face. The problem is that the petty stuff acts as background noise. And if you try to clear the air from the unimportant bullshit and focus on what really matters the SJWs accuse you of “silencing oppressed people” or “condesplaining”.

What’s funny is that sometimes the majority of people who should be offended and angered by the “microaggressive oppression” in question doesn’t seem to care. Luckily, even though they’ve obviously been brainwashed by the Patriarchy, their white male cis hetero SJWs allies are eager to show them the truth.

This can lead to some hilarity. A few days ago I read the Facebook status of a pasty white man in which he argued that band-aids are oppressive because they only come in one color, which doesn’t suit the skin tone of “PoCs”.

Things got even funnier when several “PoCs” answered to his status, pointing out that they didn’t really give a crap about the color of their band-aids as long they worked.

This can lead to some hilarity. A few days ago I read the Facebook status of a pasty white man in which he argued that band-aids are oppressive because they only come in one color, which doesn’t suit the skin tone of “PoCs”.

We may be underestimating PZ Myers and are possibly doing him a grave injustice.

What if he is secretly conducting a social experiment, with the aim of writing a real book, a massive, ground braking study on the subject of Group Conditioning?

Don’t you see it? It’s obvious once you have spotted the pattern. He will cite something Richard Dawkins has written, while suggesting that it is the vilest thing ever. The members of his outraged Flock then invariably try to outdo each other in producing the most insulting, dismissive, hate-filled comments they can think of. Myers will allow everything, except criticism of his position. It’s becoming old.

But soon Myers will go one step further. He has now conditioned his Flock to hate Dawkins so instinctively, that they will hate absolutely anything he does or says.

One day Myers is going to tell his Flock about something praiseworthy that Dawkins has done (say, donating half his fortune to an orphanage), while presenting it as before as something sleazy and despicable. If the response is the usual torrent of abuse he will be happy. Happy in the knowledge that the experiment has confirmed his hypothesis. This hypothesis being: You can turn a group of independent, atheist skeptics into an irrational, group-thinking mob by careful conditioning, by making them believe that rudeness is a virtue, that polite disagreement is trolling, and that criticism from outsiders is harassment. The annals of Pharyngula are a veritable gold mine for the revolutionary socio-biologist PZ Myers. Every comment is potential material for his Magnum Opus.

His study will be an instant bestseller. The chapter on Nerd of Redhead will become one of the most frequently cited parts of his book. Myers will become as rich and famous as Dawkins, and they will appear side by side in TV shows. There will be laughter and amazement, and even some members of the Flock will become celebrities.

Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe Myers and his blog really are the sad freak show that they appear to be.

Ophelia Benson in an oped concerning Andrew Sullivan today…..
“Who said merely saying nasty things about someone can be seen as harassment? Nobody I know of. But saying nasty things about someone forty thousand times in public, or saying nasty things about someone as part of a public dog-pile that goes on for weeks – that can be seen as harassment.”

“Andrew Sullivan should try not being a callous asshole and see what that’s like.”

That’s amazing Jan. PZ Myers certainly conditioned me for a while to start giggling when I only saw the name of NoR in anticipation. Some others manage that as well, but I’ve stopped reading there a longer time ago if not prompted. It indeed gets old fast.

✻ ✻ ✻

I’m was a left-hander too and believe my brain is in a knot because I adapted to do many things with the right claw for that worked better. Or I thought some activity must be done in a certain way, like playing the guitar. Or it was non-apparent that there are even sides — I learned fairly late that in many sports doing it in a certain way was considered “right” or “left”. At some point I had to just try what works best. I probably count as ambidextrous by now. I learned from that and other things that people are even more astonished when they truly don’t have a category for you.

I guess I used scissors early on right-handed, but always had trouble with handwriting and ink. You always smear over your words. While I’m at it: smearing, what was the topic again?

It’s pretty clear that latsot doesn’t have a conscience. However, he apparently has some dim awareness that he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, which is why he blocks people and tells them to fuck off when they ask him to substantiate the libels he is casually tossing around.

someone name Vita twitted: ” The issue is having an environment that protects rapists from social consequences by halting discussion & insisting innocence regardless of whether overwhelming evidence exists or not.”

The whole ‘innocent until proven guilty’ thing doesn’t sit well with the SJWs. They seem to prefer Spanish Inquisition/Salem Witch Trial style ‘guilty until tortured to confess’.

Also. what they consider “overwhelming evidence” in the case in question is laughably flimsy. But, by all means, let’s discuss that! No, Vita? Didn’t think so.

Matt, that tweet was in response to me. I asked her to clarify WHERE Michael had actually determined someone to be “innocent”. She didn’t answer, and flounced saying something about a “troll”. She also came up with William Lane Craig-esque qualifiers and conditions to try and make her definition of “supporting rapists” to exclude the support and protection of an ACTUAL RAPIST (Ogvorbis). I wasn’t falling for it.

I also noticed that this BlockBot admin used ableist language. Still, that is not the worse thing I’ve seen from Vita. She is a vile bully.

Ophelia Benson Boghossian is looking for more underlings to enrage
37 comments

November 3 ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻

Ophelia Benson Tutti a tavola
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November 5 ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻

PZ MyersTwo white dudes spend an hour talking about how racist and sexist it is to criticize other white dudes
81 comments

These 9 blog articles that I found currently have 259 comments. Now I don’t care about FreeThoughtBloggers obsession of calling others “obsessive”. It’s just a ridiculous “meta argument” (or Thought Terminating Cliché). Everyone criticises whoever they find worthy of critique. Collectively, they are by far the most “obsessive” if they want to see an issue there. On an individual level everyone pales in comparison with Ophelia Benson and her world record of 15 blog posts on Jaclyn Glenn in one week (July 18-23). I really wonder how she even think of charging with it.

And we haven’t even factored in that the blog articles are sent to numerous feeds, get retweeted, posted to facebook and the like and are fare more visible than some entry by AnonymousBob on page 523 of an endless forum thread.

@Aneris: it’s OK when they do it. There’s nothing that they criticize in others which they don’t accept wholeheartedly when it’s done by the members of their group.

I posted a comment on Futrelle’s blog in which I explained that attributing any kind of moral responsibility to Thunderfoot to a murder threat on the basis that both he and the author used the word “poison” to refer to feminism was a huge stretch.

I pointed out that on the same basis Futrelle could have been called a Valerie Solanas moral apologist, since they both used the same words to describe people they thought to be misogynist. I was told to shut up and fuck off, and that the two things were nothing alike, because Solanas didn’t inspire anyone to violent acts (except herself, but that’s a detail they didn’t want to discuss).

I also pointed out, on another occasion, that PZ Myers and Skepchick had doxed a woman who made a joke about him. They said it wasn’t a “real dox” because the information revealed by Skepchick were publicly available. I pointed out that when the exact same thing happened to one of them (Jen McCreight) they were ready to call it a dox. They immediately changed their tune and said that Jen McCreight was “innocent”, while woman was “guilty of smearing PZ” (oh the irony) and therefore deserved to be doxed.

And of course they all defended Ogvorbis (“he’s just a victim!”) and were ready to shame and mock the non-consensual sexual fantasies of others while completely approving the non-consensual sexual fantasies of Greta Christina.

The SJWs don’t really practice what they preach, because what they preach is about insanely restrictive standards, which nobody in their right mind would want to apply to his or her own life.

They just want more to call their enemies inhuman, disgusting and evil while saying their own group is all about empathy and acceptance.

Ah okay — wow those “desks” sound totally horrible and unusable for anyone. I guess my classroom prvilege is showing, I have never seen nor heard of such things before. As R.D. suggests in his recent tweet about privilege, I suppose I’d better go and flagellate myself or get out the hair shirt or something. Isn’t it amazing how the FtB crowd pick up on the slightest of his utterances and blow them up into full blog posts? Jeez, or should I say Peez… I suppose using R.D’s name is click-bait for their blogs.

When I see what is going on in real life, all of the horrendous things that religious adherence has done in Ireland (as highlighted by michael) as well as so many other places throughout the world, the petty “PC” hounding by the FtBullies et al make me ashamed to be human. It’s as if, being pack animals, we have to create in-packs and out-packs however irrational the foundations. They may not be children but they sure act like petulant, semi-educated spoilt brats.

When I see what is going on in real life, all of the horrendous things that religious adherence has done in Ireland (as highlighted by michael) as well as so many other places throughout the world, the petty “PC” hounding by the FtBullies et al make me ashamed to be human.

Same here. Reading the news makes me sick; there are precious few reasonable voices, and none amongst those who pull the strings. It is as though we’ve managed to build a world where being reasonable is an obstacle to promotion.

The ugly posse of rape apologists that consists of Vita Brevi, Latsot, and Improbable Joe are RAGING TEARS on Twitter.

They keep on throwing around terms such as “defending rapists”, gritting their teeth through their own tears because it has already been established there is NO rape apologism here, but only at Pharyngula, Almost Diamonds and Butterflies and Wheels. Also, by extension, those who defend those blogs support of a child rapist, are getting exposed as THE rape apologists.

Latsot, Vita, Joe, PZ, Ophelia, Zvan – you are going to have to OWN these labels from now on!

PZ…I just noticed that Philae is now on the comet, securely anchored to the surface. I’ve also discovered that, my God, watching engineers is the most boring activity on the planet. The entire live feed consisted of bored-looking people staring at consoles, trying to look intelligent while doing pretty much nothing at all, and then everyone erupts into cheers when they get the right beep.

I don’t know…are these folks lives really this relentlessly miserable and negative? Do they wake up thinking about what they can criticize, who they can smear? It can’t be doing them much good.

If he couldn’t recognise the tension, the anxiety, the passion and the joy in those scientists and engineers who’ve devoted a good chunk of their working lives to achieving this comet landing then there is something seriously wrong with him.

I just noticed that Philae is now on the comet, securely anchored to the surface. I’ve also discovered that, my God, watching engineers is the most boring activity on the planet. The entire live feed consisted of bored-looking people staring at consoles, trying to look intelligent while doing pretty much nothing at all, and then everyone erupts into cheers when they get the right beep.

I don’t know…are these folks lives really this relentlessly miserable and negative?

I can’t understand it either. A joint mission involving several European countries, engineers and scientists who have devoted 20 years of their life to this project, the awesome achievement of a species that started as a replicating molecule… and all he can do is sneer?

tina @113 I watched that livefeed and found it rivetng, the tension was obvious and that happiness and relief when the information came in that Philae had landed was awesome. Nobody looked bored or boring to me.

Maybe PZ is so negative just now because he is afraid of what the doctors will find.

And Phil my condolences to you, you manage to bring a smile to others despite the terrible year you are having. The Rosetta/philae event is just wonderful, PZ cannot ruin that no matter how grumpy he gets.

And his smears (and his followers’ smears) cannot hurt Michael and others now that they are laid out so clearly for what they are.

Thanks, Carrie. I’ve just rewatched the landing moment (at the control center), and it really gave me a rush. Myers can’t ruin it, as hard as he tries. There’s is still beauty beyond stupid internet drama, after all.

Yeah…I was glued to the live stream at work *cough* and it was riveting. You could really feel the tension and how much it meant to everyone there. What an achievement! Why anyone would want to belittle it like PZ did is quite beyond me.

PZ pretty much bags on anyone who accomplishes anything in science who isn’t him or bowing and scraping for his approval.

He also wishes that his entire life would add up to the knowledge gained from this one mission. Hell, just what they went through to successfully LAND ON A COMET generated more knowledge, and will be of more service to humanity than everything PZ has done or will ever do.

It’s quite amazing, isn’t it? PZ Myers and the Flock were once science-minded and are now only interested in a shirt that looks like campy 80s kitsch featuring scandly clad airbrush women. They’re not interested in landing a spacecraft on a comet. Is it jingoism mixed with the stereotypical US attitude of preferring exposed brain-matter over exposed skin? Is it objectification of women? Is the issue that one must look presentable and “dress properly”, or some combination? PZ Myers provides again an Outrage Rorschach Test and everyone can guess what the issue is.

What’s the purpose of guessing where he sees the problem? Everyone can come up with many potential reasons, but “objectification of women” as it stands is also a thought terminating cliché. Everyone learned it as a bad thing, yet it’s hardly exercized what it means. Is anyone aroused from looing at a campy shirt? Does he think that a shirt like this is a statement that says “women are for looking good on campy shirts”? Why is the shirt interpreted like this and not as “sex positive”? What if women prefer Hipster scientists over the creepy, emotionally cold antisocial scientists cliché?

You complain a lot about “smears” on your blog, yet you apply yourself to the issue in a very lopsided manner. Even while calling out that people are smearing your own friends, you are quite happy to let your new-found commentariat¹ smear people on the other side of the so-called rift.

It was less than a year ago that you upheld your standards impartially and as a matter of principle. But your position has changed dramatically and very much for the worst.

When it is your friend being accused of rape, you are quick to call this out as a smear, quick to say that nothing has been proven². Yet here you are hosting people that do the same thing, such as Crackity Jones in #38. One difference though, is that your friend would be held culpable if the allegations against him were proven true. In the case of the abused child, he cannot be held culpable, even if the allegations are proven true.

You used to understand this. You used to tell people to stop with such smears – such as Crackity Jones’s – on your blog. You used to redact out the names of people named in such slurs.

Now that you suddenly have a vested interest, you have turned your back on your own principles. When this became real, rather than hypothetical, you suddenly changed. Why?

.
¹ And you will have noticed the things that the more principled things that you fight for are ignored. Your post of two days ago has garnered precisely zero comments. You cannot even say your new found fans share your interests beyond rank tribalism.
² Well, it can’t be proven in court anyhow, as the statute of limitations has run out in Nevada.

When it is your friend being accused of rape, you are quick to call this out as a smear, quick to say that nothing has been proven. Yet here you are hosting people that do the same thing, such as Crackity Jones in #38. One difference though, is that your friend would be held culpable if the allegations against him were proven true. In the case of the abused child, he cannot be held culpable, even if the allegations are proven true.

Ogvorbis is not “being accused of rape.” He publicly confessed to multiple rapes.

You are defending an honest-to-God confessed rapist. You refer to him as “the abused child,” and you suggest that the onus is on everybody else to “prove” the “allegations” against him. He’s the one who made the allegations against himself! Will you admit that much?

Theo, as Myers self appointed ambassador from the far end of the psychopathic spectrum, do you support Lostit’s characterisation of Michael as ‘giant mound of rapist-defending shit’ around which Pytters are currently orbiting?

1. Nobody has accused Ogvorbis of rape. He admitted that himself on pz myers blog. Not that many people would really believe him because:
2. Ogvorbis is a pseudonym rather than real name. So it has about as much much weight as “a bloke on the Internet said.”
3. Nice job on trying to shift the attention from pz myers and others accusing michael nugent of defending rapists. Thats an actual smear and where’s the evidence for that theophontes? Where’s the beef?

In the case of the abused child, he cannot be held culpable, even if the allegations are proven true.

How is this not rape apologetics? We are talking here about someone who, as a twelve-year-old, by his own admission, without being coerced, knowing that it was a bad thing to do, raped three much younger girls.

Yes, he also claims that he had been raped himself when he was younger, by a scout leader who had pressured him to abuse other kids too. Not only that, this scout leader supposedly taught him that raping kids was a normal, ‘manly’ thing to do.

This story is so convincing to people like theophontes, that they go out of their way to show Ogvorbis their unconditional love. They excuse his rapes (“he cannot be held culpable”), because he had been ‘groomed’ by his own rapist.

In so doing, they implicitly accept the following:

1. Ogvorbis is telling the truth, not only that he was a victim himself, but also that he truly came to believe that raping other kids was an acceptable, ‘manly’ thing to do. However, this is not consistent with his admission that he knew that he was doing a bad thing when he raped those three girls.

2. Twelve-year-olds cannot be held responsible for their acts. Young age is certainly a mitigating circumstance. But there is a large grey area between treating a young offender as an adult and doing nothing at all. I’d say he should at least have been put under observation by a professional therapist. And this would still need to be done, if what he confessed really occurred.

3. It is assumed that victims of sexual abuse are very likely to become abusers themselves. Even if this were true, that would still only be an increased likelihood, not a certainty. Each case needs to be investigated and judged on its own, to establish if the link is a causal factor.

In addition:

4. Nobody asks what should be done about Ogvorbis’s victims.

5. How do we know that Ogvorbis is not still a danger to kids? Are commenters on a blog capable of making that judgement, merely on the basis of statements by the perpetrator?

6. If the rapist is also a victim of rape, does that make him less culpable?

7. How about Ogvorbis’s parents? Why didn’t he inform them about the horrible time he had in the cub scouts? I remember reading in one of his comments that Ogvorbis had decent, loving parents. Yet, Ogvorbis claims that at that time he had only ever informed one person of the abuse. That person had reacted angrily (How could Ogvorbis accuse such a fine, upstanding man?), and that was the end of it. It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he have told his parents anything? What parents wouldn’t have noticed the change in their kid?

On the other hand, the nature of the confession. with what look like deliberate misspellings; the fact that all his confessions are recovered memories, things he had forgotten for forty years; Ogvorbis later posting a comment that dramatically breaks off in the middle of a word; claims of having PTSD from 9/11; a deliberate falsehood told by Ogvorbis about Richard Dawkins (who according to O. had said that victims of child abuse have no right to complain); all these things make me seriously question every word Ogvorbis writes. Baron von Münchhausen looks like a more reliable narrator, from my perspective.

But I comment under the assumption that people like theophontes, PZ Myers, Stephanie Zvan and many others on FTB do accept the truth of the Ogvorbis confessions. And under that assumption they are rape apologists, pure and simple. That’s not a smear, theophontes, that’s a fact. Own it. Every time you refer to Ogvorbis only as a “victim of abuse”, suggesting that he is in no way responsible for what he did, you are engaging in rape apologia.

Theo I think you will find that we read all of Michael’s postings here. The fact that we do not say much on some of them simply indicates that there is nothing to argue about, and that all one can really say is “wow” or similar. You will notice a similar trend on the various FtB blogs.

Michael and the organisation to which he belongs do some wonderful work and I for one love to read about it. The post with zero responses is one of a trio, you may notice, and the responses are mostly gathered only on the one thread of the trio.

As regards the smears, what none of the “FtB side” seem to be able to see is the difference between 1) stating facts and 2) smearing someone with un-evidenced accusations.

1) The FtB posters offer kindness, hugs and babysitting jobs to a confessed rapist. This is fact; the evidence is there in his confession. It is true that in his complete confession is the assertion that he raped the girls when he was underaged and that he was abused and “groomed” as a younger child. He also states that as an adult he is afraid of the monster that he thinks still lurks inside him. FtB posters are loving on him unconditionally and are not even considering reporting his case to the authorities for examination. I do not say that this is right or wrong, simply that these are the facts as stated in the FtB site.

The facts also are that pretty much nobody, including FtB posters, believes that any human being who has comitted a criminal act is not accountable for their actions even if they had a terrible childhood. Factors from the past which influence a crime may be taken into account during sentencing, perhaps, but they do not mean that a confessed rapist is not guilty.

2) It so happens that other people at FtB have been “accused” in the past of sexual crimes or misdemeanors and those accusations have, quite rightly, been waved away without the evidence to support them.

On the other hand, one person who is prominent in skeptical circles is accused, without evidence, of raping a woman at an event. There is no evidence to back up this claim, just some conflicting and woolly statements etc, with some evidence to show that the “rape” was a most unlikely event. The woman herself has since stated that she wished she had not used the term “rape”. All of this implies that the whole thing is simply a smear.

Michael points this out and states that such serious accusations should be made to the police (where it can be examined properly), not a blog (where it can only smear), and is then accused of defending a rapist. He writes about this, some people post encouraging messages on his blog, and then he is smeared with the accusation that he defends and provides a haven for rapists. The “evidence” to support this accusation is apparently the fact that some of those people who posted encouraging messages also post at the Slymepit. What?? That is not in fact evidence, it simply widens the scope of the smear to cover more people.

But to be honest, I think that PZ has lost his hold on reality, and apparently a bunch of his followers have also. Anyone who can look at the amazing Rosetta / Philae achievement as boring until he saw a cartoony shirt to complain about — and then makes it all about the shirt — is definitely living in a different reality. I pity him / them.

The ‘recovered memory’ aspect of Oggies confession is troubling because of the way FTB handled it. We know that the unconditional belief in ‘Satanic abuse’ lead to the confabulation of increasingly elaborate stories of abuse in which the victim him/herself became a perpetrator. It’s possible the later incident was nothing more than a game of ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ which has been warped into rape to fit the child abuse narrative.

When it is your friend being accused of rape, you are quick to call this out as a smear, quick to say that nothing has been proven². Yet here you are hosting people that do the same thing, such as Crackity Jones in #38.

Let’s have a look at comment 38 and see what, exactly, you consider to be a smear.

Crackity Jones @38 wrote:

Well, according to his confused logic, he agrees that PZ and Ophelia are “rapists”, since they both provide a safe haven for a child rapist (Ogvorbis). Ironically, Latsot’s “logic” is copied from PZ, who seems to think that THEY are immune from others using their own “rape apology” logic against them.

For example, in the last few days, Latsot was growing mentally frustrated at the notion that some people regard him, PZ and Ophelia as “rape apologists” because of the arguments put forward by THEM. He was actually crying about “smears” while smearing innocent people with his convoluted argument.

This is what you call a smear? re you serious? d this, apparently, is the only example you can point to here?

Did you not see the first part of the statement that reads “according to to his confused logic…”? Are you aware of what that phrase means? It means that Crackity was not actually positing the truth of what followed, but rather was merely pointing out the implications of the special brand of “logic” being deployed. This is not, in any sense of the word, a smear. Not even close.

Shatterface @150 – I completely agree with this, although there is another facet to this I can’t find an answer to.

When Ogvorbis made his confession, did anyone from FtB point out that his memories may have been a load of rubbish? If we, for a moment, go back in time and imagine a very damaged individual postulating that this could have happened because he remembers it, what is the result of no one questioning him about it?

I realise that the chances are this either didn’t happen or he is making it up to play the victim, but I find it peculiar and irresponsible that the FtB lot confirmed his memories for him and then forgave him, despite the fact that most sceptical and responsible people would have questioned the story right from the start. I had always assumed from what I read that he had truly done these things, but had been punished and was in therapy, although I seem to remember this story breaking a number of years ago.

I have tried to find his original post, but all I can find is the “Stunned Silence” thread where they discuss it. I have tried Googling phrases so that I can see exactly what he wrote and what was said, but I will fully admit my internet searching is limited at best.

Someone should have taken him aside and suggested that recovered memories are not exactly reliable, and some professional help should be sought. And perhaps he’d like to stop posting until that help had started.

Even while calling out that people are smearing your own friends, you are quite happy to let your new-found commentariat smear people on the other side of the so-called rift.

You do NOT lecture Michael on how to run his blog. You defend a blog that hosts a child rapist (Ogvorbis), and gives safe haven to that person. You defend and uphold the rhetoric and logical argument from Pharyngula, Butterflies and Wheels and Almost Diamonds that a site that gives a “safe haven” to a rapist, makes that site’s owners and supporters “rape apologists”. This is being correctly applied to PZ Myers, Ophelia Benson, and others. You ARE rape apologists. Damned by your own words. Meanwhile, the term is not applicable over here, because nobody defends or supports ANY rapist. Nice try, though.

It was less than a year ago that you upheld your standards impartially and as a matter of principle. But your position has changed dramatically and very much for the worst.

BS. The people who have gone off the deep end are PZ Myers and Ophelia Benson. It is THEIR reputations that are in tatters. They are both considered pariahs by a large part of the atheist movement, and are gaining a reputation of being rape apologists. Bear in mind also that PZ has had an allegation of sexual harassment made against him. He was in a powerful position, the student was not. We have heard ONE SIDE of the story. Always believe the women!

When it is your friend being accused of rape

[named person]?

you are quick to call this out as a smear

Michael hasn’t commented on [named person], but I know the baboons at FTB are happy to ignore the allegation. Whatever happened to “always believe the women”?

quick to say that nothing has been proven.

Nothing has been proven has it? Just like the allegation against PZ of sexual harassment is not proven. Or the allegation of rape against Lousy Canuck is not proven! However, people with no legal training or jurisdiction can obviously now proclaim someone guilty or innocent before on a whim, so you can’t complain if people have judged [named persons] GUILTY.

Yet here you are hosting people that do the same thing, such as Crackity Jones in #38. One difference though, is that your friend would be held culpable if the allegations against him were proven true.

They have not been proven true, though. Have they Witchfinder General? PZ and Canuck would be culpable if the allegations were proven true. Ogvorbis is STILL a child rapist even if he was not culpable. Ogvorbis STILL raped a child under his own volition even if he was not culpable.

In the case of the abused child, he cannot be held culpable, even if the allegations are proven true.

He is STILL a child rapist, and you and many others at FreeThoughtBlogs absolve him and ignore his victims. By your own definition YOU ARE rape apologists.

You used to understand this. You used to tell people to stop with such smears – such as Crackity Jones’s – on your blog.

Goodness me. You can’t lecture Michael about smears on his blog when you have FAILED to condemn PZ Myers, Ophelia Benson, Stephanie Zvan, Lostit, etal for their smears. It is not one rule for you, and one rule for them. Pharyngula is a cesspit of smears from PZ himself and the vile commentators. You can OWN them, old boy.

You used to redact out the names of people named in such slurs.

Ogvorbis CONFESSED that he is a rapist. [named person] ADMITTED they have had allegations made against them. We know these are facts. Michael redacts the name of the person who, as far as I know, denies any allegations. Fixed that for you.

Now that you suddenly have a vested interest, you have turned your back on your own principles. When this became real, rather than hypothetical, you suddenly changed. Why?

I like how you are suggesting Michael somehow adopting PZ’s methods means he has lost his principles. That speaks VOLUMES. Fact is however, Michael is the principled one. It is PZ who acts like judge, jury and executioner with regard to whether someone is a rapist. Michael states the facts.

And you will have noticed the things that the more principled things that you fight for are ignored. Your post of two days ago has garnered precisely zero comments.

A bit like any blog of FreeThoughtBlogs, any “drama post” gets comments. Benson and Zvan especially know this. Am I right? [wink wink] Further, this site is one of the view places where the Horde and PZ can be challenged. You can’t do that at Pharyngula. You would be demolished in a heartbeat.

Theo is cognitively challenged or dishonest, or both. The ogvorbis case has been illustrated a hundred of times (in pretty much each comment sections in this whole article series). The details were taken into account often enough, and the main issue remains the reaction of the commentariat at FTB upon reading Ogvorbis babysitter story, i.e. someone describes himself as a “rapist” yet the reactions are very positive towards him.

We can simply acknowledge that FTB people have a very hard time in acknowledging the babysitter incident, and so far it has been impossible to make them aware of their own reactions — that is the actual issue. They have decided to rationalise everything and have convinced themselves that other people are after them with this story, unable to connect the situation with their own behaviour and allegations. Which is yet another complication, since this belongs to a larger context where FTB writers and community vilify and smear* others. I conclude that these people can no longer be considered reasonable interlocutors.

*smear:“A smear campaign, smear tactic or simply smear is a political tactic that is an unfair or untrue political attack” (Wikipedia). “Damage the reputation of (someone) by false accusations; slander / A false accusation intended to damage someone’s reputation” (Oxford Dictionary)

Someone should have taken him aside and suggested that recovered memories are not exactly reliable, and some professional help should be sought. And perhaps he’d like to stop posting until that help had started.

They couldn’t doubt his confession for ideological reasons.

Since the babysitting incident was characterised as a consequence of his own earlier abuse, to question whether he had actually raped anybody would be to throw at least part of his experience into question.

I’m surprised Myers & co. haven’t come out in support of UFO abductees yet since most of their stories involve intimate probing.

Latsot may be a few crayons short of a box as they say but Latsot isn’t PZ and PZ can scarcely be held responsible for Latsot’s tweets any more than you are responsible for what anyone other than you post.

I disagree to no responsibility, though in the end it’s ultimately Latsot’s responsibility. We are, as humans, social creatures and take cues of proper social behaviors from our peer group. This goes from a small group of friends all the way to the culture of a nation.

PZ Myers creates, fosters and encourages this type of abusive behavior on his blog. He creates a culture of attack and abuse in both word and deed. This influences his group of followers known as “The Horde.”

Considering his footprint in atheism, he’s quite probably the biggest cultivator of this toxic, attack culture that is so big on over-the-top, vile insults and rather short on actual arguments and civil behavior. And, thus, does bear some responsibility, as a prime influence, in this matter.

Seeing how his toxic, abusive behavior affects others, is one of the reasons I no longer read Mr. Myers (or any of the FTB) blog and have changed, over the years, from one of his supporters to one of his critics.

And it’s not like Mike Nugent is special in the abuse Myers and his sycophants have dished out. Rather, he’s just one of the scores of people this group, Myers’ ‘Horde,’ (which Latsot is a member in good standing) has attacked over the years.

Noelplum, someone else unjustly persecuted and banned by Myers, has a good blog post on how this sort of thing comes about and how it relates to Pharyngula::

I must say I admire your tenacity and willingness to engage in discussion. I only wish you could check your obduracy, and be more permeable to other points of view.

For example:

When it is your friend being accused of rape, you are quick to call this out as a smear, quick to say that nothing has been proven

This is wrong. Michael has not called the accusation against Voldemort a smear; he has called the accusation that he, Michael, is providing a haven for rapists a smear. Words have meanings, much as Myers and the Phlock would like to tirture them beyond recognition: providing a haven for rapists is a serious accusation, and needs to be supported with evidence. Would you like to be accused of protecting a paedophile by some blogger somewhere, with no evidence? What would your reaction be?

Of course, evidence is one of those words the Phlock has debased to the point of absurdity. Let me remind you of this exchange:

Myers: It’s not about what he thinks, but what he’s doing: defending and providing a haven for harassers, misogynists and rapists

Derek Walsh: That’s an incredibly serious accusation and one completely unsupported by evidence. But you know both those things already.

PZ Myers: Nope. The evidence is right there: his blog commentariat is populated almost entirely by slymepitters.

Whatever your ideological position on “the rift,” you must admit that Myers dug for himself a hole he could not climb off. Even if we take the most generous possible reading consistent with sanity, Myers’s statement is false, and he should have apologised for it.

But at this point Latsot makes one of his appearances as a special guest villain, and establishes by fiat the correct exegesis of Myers’s accusation. Do you really fail to see the parallelism between this and Biblical exegesis? It is tragic and hilarious at once: the Word cannot be taken at face value, and lesser mortals should not attempt the immensely difficult task of interpretation; only worthy intermediaries, such as Latsot, of all people, can extract the True Meaning hidden behind multiple layers of metaphor and allegory. Really? Come on, theophontes, you surely cannot be that stupid.

One difference though, is that your friend would be held culpable if the allegations against him were proven true. In the case of the abused child, he cannot be held culpable, even if the allegations are proven true.

1. You’re not a lawyer and it’s obvious. The law doesn’t care about those things, the law cares about whether a crime was committed or not.

2. Those were not allegations. Those were ADMISSIONS. If you admit to the crime, you’ve admitted to the crime and there’s nothing more to say.

Further, just so were clear, the very much vast majority of children who were sexually abused DO NOT BECOME SEXUAL ABUSERS. Or as the scientists say:

“The message here is that sexual victimization alone is not sufficient to suggest a boy is likely to grow up to become a sex offender,” study author and psychiatrist Arnon Bentovim tells WebMD. “But our study does show that abused boys who grow up in families where they are exposed to a great deal of violence or neglect are at particular risk.”

In short, it takes a lot of dysfunction to create a child rapist. Not just being a victim of molestation.

So, there’s no excuse for his victimization of other based on his victimhood. There’s no white-washing away his crime.

He admitted he raped some small children. And he did it an age in a country that would, for those crimes, treat him as an adult because 12-years-old IS old enough to know that right from wrong.

Yet you shelter and coddle this child rapist. You offer him hugs and refuse to acknowledge his vile, criminal past. A crime that even prisoners think is vile and, hence, child molesters have to be kept separate from the general prison population because otherwise they tend to die in prison.

So, what kind of community shelters a child-rapist when even the scum of society can’t stand child rapists?

It truly boggles the mind how and why you do this. Especially in light of how you moralize against other people over trivial things, like ‘inappropriate shirts’ worn on TV…

Sally Strange’s Twitter activity is vastly different to her antics at Pharyngula. There’s nothing vaguely confrontational there, the only negative comment she’s sent lately was to a radio station account that has been inactive since early 2012; in other words, she’s a home ground hero who sucks on the road.

I see RW is ramping up the threat narrative again ahead of her visit to China and PZ jumps on board to amplify it. Dog whistle duly blown.

One of her commentariat indulges his white night fantasy:John the Drunkard
A relief to see that a bland name like ‘Tony Ryan’ isn’t enough to shelter this troll. I’m not about to travel to Hong Kong. But if I was, I might pack an ax-handle in case I met this pig. He might even find it ‘memorable.’

Nice.

Can everyone could just threaten to kill everyone else on the same day please and get it all over with, then go back to behaving like adults.

The SJL has been more than fair to everyone else, giving their opposition (which I suppose includes both of us) a 25:1 advantage. They are allowed to make threats on any day of the week with a name (in English) that ends in Y. We get the rest of the alphabet.

Nevertheless, it is hard to deny that #Gamergate’s targets in this fight are more than just corrupt game journalists. Along with their furious denunciations of the gaming press, the movement also appears to be fighting a new culture war — one against a new, radical and dangerously illiberal left which marinates in a hideous quagmire of resentment, smugness, vacuousness and contempt for free discussion. This movement prefers the vile ochlocracy of the Twitter mob (it’s no accident that Suey Park of #CancelColbert fame is on the anti-Gamergate side), celebrates the Maoist public shaming of doxxing, and seems incapable of distinguishing between a .gif and an argument. Deemed “Social Justice Warriors,” or “SJWs” by their detractors, this new left is monomaniacally obsessed with identity politics to the exclusion of almost everything else and will attack anyone and everyone who emanates even a whiff of what it perceives as racism, sexism, cissexism, or any of a number of other “-isms,” including its own allies.

GamerGate’s Michael Nugent is perhaps someone who goes by the name TotalBiscuit…

As one put it on Reddit, “[Bain] got flamed by the anti-gamergate crowd for, as far as I can tell, honest uncertainty. It wasn’t even honest disagreement; he just didn’t know. That made me super anti-anti-gamergate.”

It’s somewhat sad that the left-leaning media is silent on this. It’s gotten the authoritarian flu that has also infected PZ Myers, Latsot and his illiberal gang (who are of course anti-gamergate and of course side with Sarkeesian, the games version of Rebecca Watson).

The anti-gamergate crowd aren’t just described as bullies, they admit to it themselves and are a nose-length ahead of PZ Myers and his dishonest hacks around him….

On October 16th, Sam Biddle of Gawker posted perhaps the most revealing pair of tweets ever written by an anti-Gamergate journalist. “Ultimately #Gamergate is reaffirming what we’ve known to be true for decades,” Biddle sneered in the first tweet. “Nerds should be constantly degraded and shamed into submission.” Not a minute later, Biddle tweeted “Bring Back Bullying.”

Well I used to think that the SJWs were a wee bit amusing and very off-the-ball but I have just seen the results of their focussed attacks. A woman lovingly makes a birthday shirt for an awesome scientist friend, which he wears (possibly so that she can share) on the most awesome day of his life, the day that humankind makes a leap forward with the heklo of himself and his team.

The SJWs spend more than 24 hours focussing on that shirt, biting at his ankles along with lazy journalists and making the woman who made the shirt feel worthless, until the man, tired and emotional after sleepless nights and mega-excitement, apologises in tears.

Well done all you SJWs, you have managed to mess up something awesome and turned it bad. Sorry guys, I am so upset to see how much real harm they and their smears can do to real people. And they won’t see it will they? They won’t see that they have probably done real damage.

What we see is fairly typical behaviour for talentless, envious people. PZ Myers is a failure both as a scientist and as an author, so what does he do? Out of spite he tries to damage the reputation of people who are, unlike him, accomplished scientists and writers. Therefore he spreads malicious gossip or complains about shirts or whatever he can lay his grubby tentacles on.

Dragging people down to his level is all he has left.

His self-plagiarized shitty book should have opened people’s eyes to the true stature and character of PZ Myers. But I guess those who still support him are talentless and envious losers like himself. Such people are not in short supply, unfortunately.

It’s interesting, I keep being told how unwelcoming and hostile the atheist movement is towards women. That has categorically not been my experience. I know that my experience is in no way representative of the experiences that other women may have had, but I find it somewhat ironic that the first person ever (Latsot) within the atheist movement to be hostile to towards me is coming from a group that have set themselves up as the exemplar of how to make sure women are made to feel welcome and safe within the movement. And then soon after Improbable Joe adds to the hostility. They really are doing an excellent job of doing exactly what they say they are defending/protecting women from.

If by any chance Ophelia happens to read this I would be interested in hearing if she agrees with Latsot telling me to ‘fuck off’ and calling me a ‘lying wanker’? And if she has any issue with the last tweet that Improbable Joe sent me in which she was also mentioned.

Of course PZ latched on to it and is now saying that it’s okay as a start but here is a bullet-list of what still needs to be done — so Peezus thinks that he is calling the shots? Sorry mate, Matt has probably never heard of you. He is a real scientist, one who probably has had no — or very little — sleep for quite a while, and who is trying to protect his friend from flak while helping to figure out what to do with the stuck lander.

While PZ is talking about getting it right, he could do with taking his own advice and apologise properly to Michael and the Slymepitters whom he smeared. What a completely pompous little arsehole.

Myers couldn’t land himself a position studying fish at a university with a coast.

LOL very true, thanks for that, Shatterface.

Now that I have had time to watch the whole hangout I have a better handle on what happened; it’s a fascinating and intense chat about what has been achieved and what they hope for tonight. Trust the SJWs in the media etc (and PZ of course) to cut out for public consumption the one little bit that interested them and was actually least interesting, while a lot of really interesting stuff was ignored. The team including Matt are all obviously very tired but are still excited, bless their sciency hearts.

The SJWs did their best to besmirch it but the actual achievement still shines out and shakes off their pettiness.

I find it somewhat ironic that the first person ever (Latsot) within the atheist movement to be hostile to towards me is coming from a group that have set themselves up as the exemplar of how to make sure women are made to feel welcome and safe within the movement. And then soon after Improbable Joe adds to the hostility. They really are doing an excellent job of doing exactly what they say they are defending/protecting women from.

But Ashling, don’t you see? You are not a real woman, you’re a Chill Girl. You have forfeited your right to be treated as a human being.

You think I’m joking? No, these people actually think that women who are not on their side are subhuman. They will rarely say so openly, but from time to time they drop their mask, like this commenter Ulysses on Myers’s blog Pharyngula:

Since you’re the one making the claim the women at the Slymepit consider themselves to be human, it’s up to you to justify this claim. Be specific and give examples to support this dubious affirmation.

Now, you may say, that is only one random commenter (even though he used to be a regular, formerly known as ‘Tis Himself). But in the same thread we read this, by another commenter, Antiochus Epiphanes:

There are quite a few women posting at the Slymepit, as far as I can tell. Don’t they consider themselves to be human beings? That would be remarkable.

Imma take this right out of the subjunctive and opine that it is remarkable.

Note that nobody protests against this dehumanising language about women. Least of all PZ Myers. On the contrary, he banned the poster to whom Antiochus Epiphanes was responding. For defending the humanity of women posting on the Slymepit.

These people are not interested in women’s rights. They only care about the rights of their own ingroup members. They will even take the side of the vilest misogynist religions when that is the Politically Correct thing to do.

As for this Improbable Joe character, this guy is one of the worst in the FTB gallery of deranged freaks. He obviously relishes abusing outgroup women. It’s pretty disturbing. I would avoid any kind of contact with him, if I were you.

I’d like to open the betting on how long it takes for the FTB crowd to blame the bouncing lander on the shirt. The niceties of this bet depend upon the desire to blame everything on the shirt against their difficulty in understanding the intricacies of Newtonian physics. Lowest odds for soonest blame.

These people are not interested in women’s rights. They only care about the rights of their own ingroup members. They will even take the side of the vilest misogynist religions when that is the Politically Correct thing to do.

It’s even worse than that. Not only they will take the side of the misogynist religions, they will argue that those religions aren’t actually misogynist, and even if they admit that they are, that the misogynist acts inspired by those religions aren’t worthy talking about, because the “homegrown threat” of people who disagree with Twitter feminists is worse than ISIS.

There’s a man on Facebook known as Geordie Tait who believes that people who support GamerGate, even women and minorities, are worse than Nazis and deserve to be exterminated. Apparently he’s not joking.

The other SJWs are criticizing him…for appropriating some Holocaust language, not for calling for the death of people who disagree with them. Many of them are perfectly cool with calling for the murder of their ideological enemies, they just don’t want to offend the Jews.

Imagine Geordie Tait writing the same things about Islam, who is far more dangerous to women that Gamergate could ever be, even if Gamergate was supporting online threats (and they’re not).

The other SJWs would have flayed him alive not only for the Holocaust imagery, but for being a racist oppressive shitlord. Because muslims are Real People, GamerGate supporters aren’t.

Radical feminism is the radical notion that those who criticize it aren’t human.

As for this Improbable Joe character, this guy is one of the worst in the FTB gallery of deranged freaks. He obviously relishes abusing outgroup women.

Improbable Joe is one of the best examples of the SJW hypocrisy. He chastise people for being “sexist” or “rape apologist” while he happily uses a Twitter avatar from an online comic that many other SJWs describe as “rape apology” (the comic actually isn’t about rape apology by any means).

If Improbable Joe were a member of the Slymepit the SJWs would have pointed at his avatar, called him a “rape apologist” and wish for him to be sodomized by a rusty porcupine. Since he’s on their side the avatar gets a free pass.

Myth:
“Youths do not commit sex offenses.”
Fact:
Adolescents are responsible for a significant number of rape and child molestation cases each year.

Sexual assaults committed by youth are a growing concern in this country. Currently, it is estimated that adolescents (ages 13 to 17) account for up to one-fifth of all rapes and one-half of all cases of child molestation committed each year (Barbaree, Hudson, and Seto, 1993). In 1995, youth were involved in 15% of all forcible rapes cleared by arrest—approximately 18 adolescents per 100,000 were arrested for forcible rape. In the same year, approximately 16,100 adolescents were arrested for sexual offenses, excluding rape and prostitution (Sickmund, Snyder, Poe-Yamagata, 1997).

The majority of these incidents of sexual abuse involve adolescent male perpetrators. However, prepubescent youths also engage in sexually abusive behaviors.

Oh, and the next item on that page deals with a relevant issue:

Myth:
“Juvenile sex offenders typically are victims of child sexual abuse and grow up to be adult sex offenders.”
Fact:
Multiple factors, not just sexual victimization as a child, are associated with the development of sexually offending behavior in youth.

Recent studies show that rates of physical and sexual abuse vary widely for adolescent sex offenders; 20 to 50% of these youth experienced physical abuse and approximately 40 to 80% experienced sexual abuse (Hunter and Becker, 1998). While many adolescents who commit sexual offenses have histories of being abused, the majority of these youth do not become adult sex offenders (Becker and Murphy, 1998). Research suggests that the age of onset and number of incidents of abuse, the period of time elapsing between the abuse and its first report, perceptions of how the family responded to the disclosure of abuse, and exposure to domestic violence all are relevant to why some sexually abused youths go on to sexually perpetrate while others do not (Hunter and Figueredo, in press).

Juveniles account for more than one-third (35.6 percent) of those known to police to have committed sex offenses
against minors.

Juveniles who commit sex offenses against other children are more likely than adult sex offenders to offend in groups and at schools and to have more male victims and younger victims.

The number of youth coming to the attention of police for sex offenses increases sharply at age 12 and plateaus after age 14. Early adolescence is the peak age for offenses against younger children. Offenses against teenagers surge during mid to late adolescence, while offenses against victims under age 12 decline.

Oops. As it turns out, (shocking, I know) theophontes, (who still links to an ableist slur, so much for his ethical superiority), is again, not basing his statements on actual facts.

Even when the rapist is young and has been abused, the legal system will in fact put them in jail for rape.

Yet Theophontes will probably name himself as someone who supports providing evidence and data for his claims. yet, all he ever seems to do is deliberately misinterpret what people he dislikes say, all the while demanding that the words of people he DOES approve of be taken in the best way possible.

Remember, Clear is always good, SP is always bad. I wonder if Theo is Clear enough to know about Xenu yet?

Oh, almost forgot his special safe word…nah, never mind, that joke’s run its course.

You have said that a friend of mine is being accused of rape. That is not true.

The accusations made against (M_______)¹ were retracted? I saw Carrie mentioned something in #148 above, but have too date not found, nor be offered, any links to support this. Or did you mean that the person in question is no friend of yours? In that case, my apologies for making that assumption.

You have added that I have a vested interest now that this has become real rather than hypothetical. That is not true either.

A year ago you were asking people not to post accusations of rape against (O________). You went so far as to redact references to (O_______), as I am doing now. That was an appropriate manner to deal with accusations of rape. You have since stopped taking appropriate actions and have let your commentariat carry on unchallenged. If you have new information that is driving this complete turnabout in your policy towards (O______), then you could do worse than share these with the rest of us. I, for one, am confused as to why this would otherwise have occurred.

We must bear in mind that rape pertains to a criminal offence. As such (at least outside of North Korea) it can not apply to 12 year old. Particularly one that was severely physically and psychologically abused and, furthermore, brainwashed. ²

In the best of all possible worlds, neither (O____) nor (M____) abused any other person in any way. Such would be wonderful. The discussion we are having would then revolve only around hypotheticals³. Around two narratives which can be compared and contrasted. This would also imply no vested interest in the arguments being made.

In such a hypothetical discussion, would comments like those made by (R________) make any sense: “If you want to be in a position to testify & jail a man, don’t get drunk.” ? (You notice the smear there, ascribing underhand motives to (A_____) in her being raped? Do you also notice that such bullpucky is perfectly in keeping with MRA rape apologetics? The victims are continually being accused of underhand motives.)

…

¹ I have self-censored/redacted out all names, in keeping with your blog policies and conform with your own set examples.
² As a comparison, wrt ages, child soldiers are not held accountable if they are under the age of 15.
³ A story need not be true for us to discuss the legal and moral implications of the actions of its protagonists. Clearly (R_____) sees the need to discuss certain subjects in the hypothetical: “Unlike the hypothetical case [(A____)’s] of my tweets you have clear & convincing memories”

Besides, it’s not as if anybody is accusing Ogvorbis of rape: he himself admitted as much. Indeed, the only people I know who have expressed doubts concerning the veracity of his story are slymepitters. I myself greatly doubd Ogvorbis’s. Criticism has been levelled at FtB bloggers and commenters because, in their own terms, they are hypocritical.

Whether Ogvorbis’s actions constitute a criminal offence or not because of his age is wholly irrelevant. The fact is that judicial systems around the world would not turn a blind eye to rape and would prescribe measures in order to protect both the perpetrator and potential victims.

Finally, this is as dishonest a smear as I’ve ever seen:

In such a hypothetical discussion, would comments like those made by (R________) make any sense: “If you want to be in a position to testify & jail a man, don’t get drunk.” ?

You are wilfully and in the face of logic equating “If you want to be in a position to testify & jail a man, don’t get drunk” with “If you don’t want to get raped, don’t get drunk.” It has been shown to you a thousand times that the equivalence is false. Why do you insist? I really cannot understand what possible advantage you can derive from ascribing to Dawkins a remark he did not make and then attacking him for that. It’s not as if there is a shortage of real enemies, is there?

I love it when folks include footnotes in their posts. I especially love it when you scroll down and read the footnote and it isn’t a link or reference to something that will back up the argument, but, instead, is the mere repetition of a claim that was demonstrated to be false – with actual references! – by the immediately preceding post.

I also love it when folks make an accusation and, then, when told by the target that the accusation is false, they start asking what part(s) of the accusation is false (as opposed to either retracting the accusation or demonstrating that every part of it is true). I suppose that this occurs because the obligation for making sure that every part of accusation is true before stating it in public doesn’t apply on the internet. I just wish that shifting the burden of proof were as easy in real life.

I really cannot understand what possible advantage you can derive from ascribing to Dawkins a remark he did not make and then attacking him for that. It’s not as if there is a shortage of real enemies, is there?

Strawmanning is all the SJWs can do to maintain the illusion that the a/s movement is full of sexist misogynist rape-enabling racists who refuse to check their privilege. They need to maintain this illusion in order to support their theory that women and minorities are under-represented in the a/s community because they are not welcome. This theory, in turn, is needed to justify their attempted power grab in the a/s community (see Atheism Plus). Since there is no real evidence for this theory, they simply make stuff up.

As the incorrigible group-thinking authoritarians they are, they perceive Dawkins to be the main leader in the a/s movement, therefore he is the prime target of their feigned outrage. What they can’t seem to understand is that real sceptics are as averse to following leaders as is humanly possible. When we see unreasonable attacks against Dawkins, we are not annoyed because it is ‘our leader’ who is under attack, but because the attacks are so evidently unreasonable. The strawmanning by the likes of theophontes is so obvious and desperate that it is almost laughable. No, strike that ‘almost’, it is laughable.

Perhaps we should not be too hard on theophontes, because someone who can in all seriousness compare Rebecca Watson with Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela or Harvey Milk is almost certainly non compos mentis.

Strawmanning is all the SJWs can do to maintain the illusion that the a/s movement is full of sexist misogynist rape-enabling racists who refuse to check their privilege.

I seem to have a real difficulty accepting that some people are idiots. I can readly accept that fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, creationists, racists and sundries are idiots, but I find it harder to beleieve in the case of Ophelia Benson, PZ Myers and their acolytes and sycophants.

At least part of my problem arises from a (mistakenly) perceived convergence between my social justice objectives and theirs.

We must bear in mind that rape pertains to a criminal offence. As such (at least outside of North Korea) it can not apply to 12 year old. Particularly one that was severely physically and psychologically abused and, furthermore, brainwashed. ²

This is factually incorrect, as the links I provided have shown. in both the united states and the UK, 12 year olds have been prosecuted as rapists. Some as adults, more commonly as juveniles, but that it happens outside of North Korea is literally inarguable. It does, the facts prove this out.

You don’t have to like that, but to continue to say that it does not happen when facts have been shown to prove otherwise is to deliberately say things that are not true with the knowledge that what you are saying is not true.

You do not get to have your own facts because reality is inconvenient to your ideology. What you are saying is not true, and you cannot claim ignorance of that.

Theophantes would have you believe none of those youths were incarcerated. none. Theophantes would have to provide some AMAZING proof of that claim, but he shan’t. He “just knows” i suppose.

So now in addition to his continuing support for ableist slurs, we see that Theophontes is deliberately and provable saying things that are not true as a way to give Oggy a “Get out of being a rapist free” card.

One must then ask, why? Why is this so important? Well, the answer is obvious. If he, and others can somehow make it so Oggy isn’t a real rapist, that nothing he did counts because of age or past abuse, then they are no longer hypocritical for their nigh slavish support of him and his actions, such as his refusal to even apologize or publicly own up to his misdeeds.

(Which again, I *have* to say, I think are all fabrications. I think his entire schtick is the “O NOES, I HAS A MONSTERRR INSIDE OF ME” sympathy play so that people will think he’s both a victim and dangerous. I would absolutely not be surprised to find he uses it at cons and other gatherings as a way to get laid. It is bullshit from the word go.)

But as FTB have blindly accepted his story, (and mind you, not only not “believed the victim”, but thrown the victims out because they’ve managed to make the rapist the victim of his own actions), then it is absolutely correct to continue to nail them to the wall, so to speak, for their raging hypocrisy in this case.

The fact that theophontes is now deliberately pushing fact- and accuracy- free blather as a justification for Oggy’s “crimes” is even more disgusting. Now, they don’t count because “he’s too young, he wouldn’t have been arrested or incarcerated anyway.”

REALLY?

So now, rape only counts if you might have been arrested/incarcerated?

Theophontes has gone human klein bottle twice ’round and if he’s not careful, he’s going to become so dense, he’ll have his own bloody event horizon.

I seem to have a real difficulty accepting that some people are idiots. I can readly accept that fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, creationists, racists and sundries are idiots, but I find it harder to beleieve in the case of Ophelia Benson, PZ Myers and their acolytes and sycophants.

I don’t assume that because someone has academic tenure their skills are transferable to other contexts.

I seem to have a real difficulty accepting that some people are idiots. I can readly accept that fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, creationists, racists and sundries are idiots, but I find it harder to beleieve in the case of Ophelia Benson, PZ Myers and their acolytes and sycophants.

I’d say that a mixture of idiocy, delusion and malice is involved. In the case of Myers and Benson it seems to be predominantly malice. They must know very well that they have been misrepresenting, defaming and strawmanning their opponents on many occasions. These things do not happen by accident, they must be deliberate.

As for their Social Justice goals, I am fairly certain that almost every member of the a/s community is in favour of equal rights for women, ethnic minorities, and LGBT people. What many find objectionable in bloggers like Benson and Myers is their call-out culture, their dishonesty, their defaming and abusing of opponents, their narcissism, their self-righteousness, their condescending treatment of women and minorities as thin-skinned folk who must be handled with kid gloves. Not to mention their embracing of barmy neofeminist theory as if it were legitimate science.

Myers and Benson are examples of Professional Offence Seekers, a subspecies of SJW closely related to, but slightly different from the Professional Victim. They are predominantly found in the U.S. and their preferred habitats are certain blog networks as well as Twitter.

It has not yet been established what is the best way to control this recently evolved pest. Patient rebuttal of their claims and exposure of their dishonesty in conjunction with relentless mockery appears to be the most promising approach.

Yet Theophontes will probably name himself as someone who supports providing evidence and data for his claims. yet, all he ever seems to do is deliberately misinterpret what people he dislikes say, all the while demanding that the words of people he DOES approve of be taken in the best way possible.

(My emphasis.)

Erm, except when “the words of people he DOES approve of” can be re[mis]interpreted / defined to mean something (positive) that creatively mendaciously rescinds and denies the actual true and real (negative) meaning.

Besides, it’s not as if anybody is accusing Ogvorbis of rape: he himself [claimed to be a rapist]. Indeed, the only people I know who have expressed doubts concerning the veracity of his story are slymepitters.

You are wilfully and in the face of logic equating “If you want to be in a position to testify & jail a man, don’t get drunk” with “If you don’t want to get raped, don’t get drunk.” It has been shown to you a thousand times that the equivalence is false.

Jan Steen said:

No, strike that ‘almost’, it is laughable.

Well, not quite (in my opinion). I mean, witness the Matt the Evil Shirt Scientist case (for just one example). People like Theophoney have more real-world PR (public relations) power than is safe, sane, or realistic.

Contrary to your statement, and similar statements by other folks I admire, such as J. C. Welch, I think in a very real way people like Theophilatory, Sarkeesian, Myers, and other SJWs of that ilk (for some reason the SJL generally hates the word “ilk”), have a dangerously prominent place of PR power rendering them frighteningly effective at social control.

I think these people pose a very real, serious, and highly dangerous threat to rational thinking, critical thinking, and general social freedoms such as the freedom of speech, the freedom to gather in a group, and so on and so forth. Yes, I suspect that that might sound somewhat paranoid, but I cannot but help to feel it is true.

Theo I did not say that “the accusations were retracted”. What I said was:

The woman herself has since stated that she wished she had not used the term “rape”.

She said this:

If she had to do it over again, [the accuser] said, she would not use the word “rape” because “that seems to get people’s backs up immediately. If people prefer to use the term ‘creep,’ that’s fine. I’m telling my story, not giving testimony in court.” But she doesn’t regret speaking out. “It was intensely frustrating,” Smith said, to “watch other women walk straight into the same situation. I have no idea if anyone else was deceived in this way, and actually had a, for lack of a better term, I’m going to call it a ‘sexual incident,’ with him after that, but I do know that attendees were blissfully ignorant.”

“creep” is a very different word from “rapist”. A “sexual incident” is very different from “rape”. If she felt at any time that either of those terms would do to describe the person or the event in her story, then it was not rape.

Michael is not showing a double standard; Ogvorbis is not the rapist’s name and nobody here has doxxed him.

In addition to Welch’s excellent comment @188, it may be as well to point out a further dishonesty in theophontes latest excercise in rape apologia @181.

theophontes writes:

As a comparison, wrt ages, child soldiers are not held accountable if they are under the age of 15.

Your beloved Ogvorbis has confessed to raping three very young girls of his own volition, i.e. without being coerced. He was not forced to fight in some rebel army, you moron. Nobody ordered him to rape those girls.

Should a commenter show up at Pharyngula and claim to be one of Ogvorbis’s several victims, what do you think would be the betting that such an individual would be:

1. Asked to prove that she was actually a victim of child rape
2.Told that Ogvorbis had repented and that she should shut up and listen
3. Told to do something unlikely with a porcupine
4. Banned

The one thing we can all be certain of is that she would not be welcomed with any form of sympathy, nor would she be granted ‘believe the victim’ status. How about it, Theophontes? How would you respond to someone commenting at Pharyngula and stating she was Ogvorbis’s victim? Can you justify your response in a way that a reasonable average human being would agree with you?

I think these people pose a very real, serious, and highly dangerous threat to rational thinking, critical thinking, and general social freedoms such as the freedom of speech, the freedom to gather in a group, and so on and so forth. Yes, I suspect that that might sound somewhat paranoid, but I cannot but help to feel it is true.

I don’t think you’re being paranoid, but there may be some confirmation bias at work, which may make the problem seem worse than it really is. In the same way that a biologist studying nematodes may be inclined to overestimate their importance, someone who is familar with the antics of Myers & Co may see their influence in places where it is not actually present

I have the same problem concerning confirmation bias, but it seems to me that if Michael is willing to dissect statements by Myers, Benson and even Latsot, then they must constitute a real problem.

Further confirmation comes from their access to widely broadcast media. Adam Lee published his inept tirade on the Guardian; Anita Sarkeesian has appeared on Colbert; the current shirtgate has even made it to the BBC pages. Reason appears to have been drowned by right-wing fanatics, wishy-washy non-committal liberals and the lunatic left. Apparently, not only web sites, but all channels of communication have been reduced to click-bait: either make your message outrageous or be careful not to alienate anyone.

Yes. To me too, actually. As I have previously stated, confirmation bias notwithstanding, I think people like TheoPlasticity, LostIt, Myers, Zvan, Benson, and all the rest of those imitation human beings on places like the various A+ blogs and forums, Skepchick, FTB and so on, and so on, and so on, are toxic; dangerously and life-threateningly (in the sense of general accepted and long-worked-for human rights and so on) seriously toxic.

“…she would not use the word “rape” because “that seems to get people’s backs up immediately…”

To “get people’s backs up”. To put it mildly. Rape victims get themselves smeared by big name atheists like (R_______), not to speak of the endless threats and online abuse.

‘This behavior is unacceptable … (M_______), it is not OK to have sex with someone you know for an absolute fact is plastered (particularly if you’re deceiving them by pretending to drink too!). It is wrong … Having sex with someone you know is plastered is wrong.’

To which she has added (though it did not make it into the Buzzfeed article.):

I was babbling to myself incoherently, and very obviously drunk out of my mind.

Yeah that whole predatory notion that if you get someone really drunk, you can bypass their consent. “No Your Honour, I certainly wouldn’t call it rape… I contrived to get her stone drunk and then had a ‘sexual incident’. Er, … can I go now?” Yeah right!

Michael, I would be fascinated to hear that you have more convincing evidence than dancing around words.

[culpability of a 12 year old]

Certain states in the US have no lower age limit. Not with the intention that they will be tried as adults, but that the trial will investigate the details of each case individually. Taking as example the most egregious state that I know of in the US , Texas (where the governor (R_______) prides himself with his tally of prisoners murdered by the state), we find that the age limitation comes through Section 8.07: “Age Affecting Criminal Responsibility”, of their penal code. As in the case of the UN, the age is set at 15 years.

That things go horribly and iniquitously wrong? Certainly they do. The UK has changed its laws regarding the age of culpability for mere political expediency before. It is well that we do not look to the worst legal disasters of either the USA, or UK, as a source of moral guidance. As counter as it runs to the RWA mindset, the seeking of punishment, as opposed to rehabilitation, for such young offenders, does not work as a policy. Delinquency at such an age is a failure of society – but such an idea is abhorrent to a world view that eschews societal justice.

[smears]
To clarify (R______)’s nasty smear against (A______): (R______) was refering to (A____)’s intentions with regard towards (M______) . I quoted the very words he used and I pointed out that these constitute a smear. Here again: “If you want to be in a position to testify & jail a man, don’t get drunk”
This is (R______)’s weasel way of suggesting that (A_____)’s motivation was to “testify & jail a man”. Why in YHWH’s name would she ever want to do such a thing? He is attributing to her the most pernicious motives. Those are his own words right there.

Is he furthermore suggesting that if one were to “try & jail a man”, one should rather get raped by that man while you are sober?
…
¹ Redundant footnote.

Certain states in the US have no lower age limit. Not with the intention that they will be tried as adults, but that the trial will investigate the details of each case individually.

Hasn’t this intention (to investigate each case individually) been subverted in Ogvorbis’ case? Doesn’t the on-going protection of this person amongst the FtB crowd continue to subvert the intention and ability to investigate his case? And doesn’t that amount to providing a haven for rapists, a place where the legal intention and ability to investigate each case continues to be actively subverted?

Do you feel the FtB commenters are qualified to decide if Ogvorbis’ case ought to be investigated further? Do you feel they are qualified to assess whether there is any real risk of re-offense? Or do you agree that the proper authorities ought to be making those assessments and decisions?

Theophontes wrote: We must bear in mind that rape pertains to a criminal offence. As such … it can not apply to 12 year old. Particularly one that was severely physically and psychologically abused and, furthermore, brainwashed.”

1) Welch @ 188 has provided several irrefutable examples that perps age 12 & younger can and have been criminally prosecuted. Why have not retracted your claim to the contrary?

2) If a perp is found to be criminally insane — that is, their mental state at the time of commission of the crime was such that they were incapable of telling right from wrong (absence of mens rea) — they cannot be held criminally responsible for their action. But they aren’t just set free; rather institutionalized in a mental facility (cf. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest);

3) One can be clinically insane without being criminally insane;

4) Oggie admits he knew what he was doing was wrong, therefore possessed mens rea, therefore is criminally responsible for his acts.

Theo, you have now been provided information that belies your assertions. Had you investigated these matters instead of speaking from ignorance, you would never had made such foolish, easily refutable claims.

The spasmodic defense by the Horde of Oggie the child rapist is a bizarre phenomenon — a group fixated on battling Rape Culture™ and rape apologists, yet themselves praising & apologizing for a confessed rapist. It almost seems a test of obedience, reminiscent of that African minister who convinced his parishioners to eat grass.

Theo, I suggest you reflect on the evidence provided you, on what is motivating you to ignore that evidence and instead defend a claimed rapist, and to consider the possibility that you have fallen under the influence of a cult.

Yeah that whole predatory notion that if you get someone really drunk, you can bypass their consent. “No Your Honour, I certainly wouldn’t call it rape… I contrived to get her stone drunk and then had a ‘sexual incident’. Er, … can I go now?” Yeah right!

Theophontes, how many times has this been explained to you? I’ll explain it one more time, and if you insist with your irrelevant complaints I’ll conclude you are mentally ill.

Is having sex with a person who cannot give consent rape? Yes We all agree. Nobody is denying it. As far as I can tell, nobody here has ever said it isn’t. I’m sure there are people out there who would say it is not. Well, those people are imbeciles.

I hope I’ve made myself clear in the preceding paragraph. Just in case you still have doubts, I’ll repeat: having sex with a person who cannot give consent is rape. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Is Voldemort guilty of rape because he had sex with a drunk woman? We don’t knowIf he had sex with a woman who was unable to give consent then he would be guilty of rape, but we don’t know whether he did have sex with a woman who could not, at the time, give consent. And we don’t know because we don’t have enough evidence.

At this point your usual reply is believe the victim. To which my reply is that believe the victim is question-begging because we don’t know that there really is a victim. Believeing an accuser just because you happen to like the person is not enough justification for those of us who don’t know her. Accepting believe the victim as a principle of justice would mean accepting mob rule, and I’m going to fight against that with all my strength.

If the accuser should always be believed, then you should also explain why Myers and Thibeault have not been disowned by you and the rest of the phlock. After all, both of them were accused of sexual assault by, in your words, victims. Where is your believe the victim principle now?

Is the above clear enough, or are you going to insist in accusing us of excusing rape?

Theo Rubbish. No “big name atheist” has smeared any rape victim. Learn to read what they actually say, in context, and then learn to think clearly with your brain instead of filling it with fantasies.

Whatever changes the woman you have in mind may have chosen to make in her statement on different click-hungry fora, she has not been consistent, there is apparently no actual evidence of rape, and she herself cannot make up her mind exactly what to call it. She chose to smear a man anonymously on a blog long after the alleged event rather than taking it to the authorities at the time. That is her privilege but it does make it nigh impossible to now prove that an assault took place and it does lay her (and the blog owner) open to a possible charge of slander / libel. If she really believed that she was raped — and if her boyfriend at the time believed it — it would have been much wiser to report it at the time rather than posing for happy-snaps with her alleged attacker or writing him friendly notes.

Shatterface

I am fairly certain that almost every member of the a/s community is in favour of equal rights for women, ethnic minorities, and LGBT people. What many find objectionable in bloggers like Benson and Myers is their call-out culture, their dishonesty, their defaming and abusing of opponents, their narcissism, their self-righteousness, their condescending treatment of women and minorities as thin-skinned folk who must be handled with kid gloves. Not to mention their embracing of barmy neofeminist theory as if it were legitimate science.

Oh lordy yes. The Philae landing debacle was a prime example of this; on the very day that Kim Kardashian was doing far more, one would have thought, to objectify women, and history was made in space, all they could think of was to upset a scientist who wore a shirt lovingly made for him by a woman.

I agree with those who say that we inevitably have confirmation bias when we focus on the silly little FtB blogs and the PC “warrior” arm of the SJ movement and see how petty they are. However, it is clear that although they may be quite small, they are very noisy and they have access to all the mainstream media. Real journalism has declined badly, with the papers etc snapping up any poorly-researched but suitably shocking piece. So these snappy, pompous little people are given large platforms with which to influence others. Shirtgate, for instance, would have been largely ignored if the yappy uber-feminists had not been given publicity by the BBC and newspapers.

It is worrying in much the same sort of way that it alarms us whenever creationists or other fundamentalists manage to infiltrate our schools. In their own little nooks, these people look amusing and unlikely to have any effect, but with the backing of the lazy mainstream media they become dangerous and horrible.

This is why we need people like Michael, who uses true skeptic techniques to expose the sloppiness and lack of evidence that these people use in order to smear others.

You don’t seem to devote much thought to Ogvorbis’s alleged victims. You have spent a lot of time defending Ogvorbis, but I would love for you to describe what you feel these three now-grown women deserve and who is to blame for the misery they’ve endured.

Did these women have trouble forming normal relationships? With their parents? With boyfriends or girlfriends?

Two of the girls are sisters. Did their relationship crumble because of Ogvorbis?

Substance abuse and other addictions…did Ogvorbis’s victims fall into these traps, all because of what Ogvorbis did to them?

Gee, for a member of the Horde, you don’t seem to think of the victims very much.

(R_____) has smeared (A_____). That much is clear. He has accused her of having ulterior motives in the claim she has made against (M_____). He flat out accused her of wanting “to be in a position to testify & jail a man”. That much holds – whether or not you believe (A____) was sober enough to give consent. He even gives her advice not to get drunk if she wishes to pursue such a course. (Thereby linking his statement to the her rape. (A_____) describes it as a rape. (M_____) refutes her version. (R_____) seems less concerned either way – his outrage is reserved for what he imputes of her.)

How do you arrive at your conclusion that Dawkins’s tweets were aimed directly at (A____)?

Certainly the timing makes it likely that the Buzzfeed article prompted him to share his thoughts on alcohol, sex, responsibility, and allegations. But his thoughts were framed as general statements. He didn’t name anybody, and he didn’t even imply that he had any particular case in mind.

Without evidence, you insist that he was speaking about a specific case that may have prompted him to share some thoughts—thoughts framed in explicitly general terms. You’re either a mind reader or a tribalistic ideologue willing to invent facts and groundlessly ascribe motives to out-groupers when reality conflicts with your preferred narrative. And I don’t believe in mind readers.

Hasn’t this intention (to investigate each case individually) been subverted in Ogvorbis’ case?

In what way subverted? If there is any likelihood of action being taken against him to begin with. I do not see how such action is being subverted. Everything we know about the entire situation is public.

Doesn’t the on-going protection of this person amongst the FtB crowd continue to subvert the intention and ability to investigate his case?

In what way? All the information available pertaining to his case is presented clearly and without redaction on FTB.

And doesn’t that amount to providing a haven for rapists, a place where the legal intention and ability to investigate each case continues to be actively subverted?

Don’t you mean the opposite? All information available is there in public view. If you are genuinely interested in this case, I suggest you make use of the opportunity to bring yourself up to speed on what we are discussing. (I trust you have the privilege of a fully functioning Google search engine? I do not.)

Do you feel the FtB commenters are qualified to decide if Ogvorbis’ case ought to be investigated further?

Why single out FtB commenters? The information available is public and available to anyone who cares enough to look for it.

Do you feel they are qualified to assess whether there is any real risk of re-offense?

Are you? Is there not a real risk that you may offend for the first time? Can you prove otherwise?

Or do you agree that the proper authorities ought to be making those assessments and decisions?

I fail to understand why the authorities would pursue a case like this. Once you have actually taken the trouble to appraise the situation, you might finally comprehend why they are not pursuing this case.

Perhaps it is getting time to rather ask yourself why this blog continually seeks to host a smear campaign against (O______). This has gone on for well over a year.

Until I decide how to deal with this [ie:the smearing of (O_____)], I’ve deleted all references to the name of the person involved, even though it a pseudonym. Please do not name him here again.

Have you since come to a resolve to reverse your previous policy? Is the decision based on any actual evidence, or are you merely pandering to your new-found fans? Please be sociable, share your evidence, or at least your rationale, with us.

theophontes @213,
Thank you for responding. I am quite well aware of the situation being discussed, by the way.

In what way subverted?

By failing to report the confession to anyone with any actual authority to determine if there is any need to further investigate or take actions.

Are you? Is there not a real risk that you may offend for the first time? Can you prove otherwise?

I believe that you are clever enough to know that this is a false equivalence. That said, if you genuinely had good evidence and reasons to believe I was going to comit a serious crime, I would argue that you have an ethical and moral obligation to report such.

I fail to understand why the authorities would pursue a case like this.

I’m sure you are familiar with the logical fallacy known, informally, as the argument from ignorance. That you fail to understand why there might be a legitimate need to investigate further, doesn’t mean that there is no legitimate need to investigate further. Don’t you understand that you are neither qualified to make that determination, nor have you been charged with the authority to do so?

Perhaps it is getting time to rather ask yourself why this blog continually seeks to host a smear campaign against (O______). This has gone on for well over a year.

Please define “smear campaign” as you are using it here. What I see people doing is repeating what Ogvorbis himself has written, and which you just admitted above is now public information. So please describe the smears you are talking about, maybe provide some concrete examples.

“we” are discussing O___’s claim to have, without durress, coaching, or external pressure from another on-the-scene individual, and while being fully aware that it was wrong, at the time of the claimed incident, proceeded anyway to rape three young children. It seems to me that you are incapable of acknowledging that fact.

Why single out FtB commenters?

Because FTB commentors are germane and specific to the ongoing discussion surrounding O___’s claim to have raped three young children, and it is the FTB commentors who continue to maintain what can only be described as a haven for O___ to wallow in.

I fail to understand why the authorities would pursue a case like this.

Because it is a claimed instance of the rape of young children?

But, of coursse, all we know is what O___ tells us. And whether or not some or any of what he says is true is unknown. In reference to the question regarding the authorities, we can only make suppositions based on O___’s claims, in which case:

1. It is almost certainly too far in the past to be effectively pursued.
2. O___ told no one about it, except for his contemporary ejaculations on FTB, so, for all we know, there are no authorities persuing the case because a complaint has not been brought forward, because, according to his own testimony, O___ wanted no one to know about it.
3. We know nothing about the victims; did they tell anyone? Who knows?

Perhaps it is getting time to rather ask yourself why this blog continually seeks to host a smear campaign against….

That has been explained endlessly to you, but you simply go LALALA I can’t hear you, and dance around facts that make you uncomfortable. For the most part this campaign of smears, as you call it, is simply quoting O___ verbatim. So, you know, hung by his own petard. Secondly, the so-called campaign is much more about FTB’s profound and ugly hypocrisy in offering O___ such a safe haven to continue persuing his victim points and confessional treats.

By failing to report the confession to anyone with any actual authority to determine if there is any need to further investigate or take actions.

Might I ask you why you, personally, have not done this? You claim to have just as much information as I have. You do not need my permission, nor endorsement to do what you are claiming to be the right thing.

If you genuinely believe (O____) currently poses even the slightest threat to people (other than himself), then you must act on that belief.

Don’t you understand that you are neither qualified to make that determination, nor have you been charged with the authority to do so?

And you are? Yet you want me to call in an investigation because of your own muddled convictions.

Please define “smear campaign” as you are using it here.

People here pretend that a 12 year old should be dragged in front of the courts and sentenced as an adult. You yourself claim that we are “failing to report the confession to anyone with any actual authority”. You claim to have as much evidence as anyone, yet fail to see the hypocrisy of that statement. For all the vindictive twisting and turning, not much is being done by the very people that are baying for punishment.

I am not the one claiming that a twelve year old, who has further endured two and a half years of tortuous grooming prior, can be held culpable.

I wonder if you have noticed how much this blog is turning into a haven for right-wing reactionaries? The demand to punish children as adults is very strong here.

I don’t know if you know of the (horrific) James Bulger murder in England, in the early nineties? The neocon government chose to change the two perpetrators from ten year olds into adults, thereby creating the UK’s two youngest murderers. Failing to get a handle on the underlying causes of the growing criminality in the UK at the time, they chose to set these two kids up as scapegoats. Their right-wing world view just couldn’t accept their own failures, and instead looked to pass the buck onto two children by magically transforming them into adults. A knee-jerk reaction to their self-induced moral panic.

To quote John Major:

“society needs to condemn a little more, and understand a little less”

I did not realise that this thread was still active. Sorry for the delay.

209 theo

Nonsense. Learn to read what your pet “big name atheist” actually said, in context, not the “context” that suits your narrative. Not what you think he meant because of the peculiar bias of the little pond in which you swim.

Just to be clear, I do not care about defending any “big name atheist” from the truth. I respect the good that they do for science and atheism, but I do not know more about them than that. I do care about fairness and about real evidence, skepticism and scientific method. It is annoying to see statements consistently being mis-represented as they are by people like yourself.

My reply to your 209 is in moderation at the moment, Theo. It will emerge eventually I am sure.

As for your post 218, I had to laugh. “right wing reactionaries?” LOL…

I don’t see anyone demanding to punish children as adults on this thread. What I do see is people pointing out what the law is in various countries and that the law in those places does not count prior abuse of the child as an excuse for later rape by that child. I also see them showing you that your rapist friend has confessed to raping children younger than himself, that FtB provides a huggy space for him, and that PZ and co ignore this fact (“oh but he was abused as a younger kid so we must care for him”) whilst smearing Michael and a large percentage of the posters here.

Your pal states that he raped as a kid and that he is still afraid of his inner monster. He is loved on at Pharyngula because he says he suffered abuse as a younger child. Would the FtB posters offer similar sympathy to any ‘pit person who suffered childhood abuse but did NOT go on to rape voluntarily? Apparently not, because what I see in posts by the SJ “warriors” is that ‘pitters, several of whom have suffered abuse and none of whom appear to have raped anyone, are smeared and called rapists. And anyone (such as Michael) who lets them have space to express / explain themselves is smeared also.

theophontes @218,
I appreciate your willingness to continue this conversation and I hope that we can find some amount of common ground at some point.

The demand to punish children as adults is very strong here.

I haven’t seen a single comment “demanding” anything like this, nor any that merely hint, suggest, or imply what you are claiming. However maybe I missed them or maybe I misinterpreted something, so can you point me to any specific examples that lead you to this conclusion?

What I have seen are comments explaining that, in some jurisdictions and in some instances, young children are investigated, prosecuted and even incarcerated. However (unless I missed or misinterpreted something) nobody here has suggested what you claim that people are demanding. Is it possible you have misinterpreted what people have written on this? Are you open to that possibility at all, or are you completely and irrevocably convinced that you are right?

The point people are trying to make, as far as I can tell, is that individual citizens (like myself, like you, like the FtB commenters, etc.) are not in any position (legally, morally or ethically) to decide whether an admission of a serious crime ought to be investigated further or not. That decision ought to be made by those law enforcement agencies that have been granted the proper legal authority, and that have the proper resources and experience to make such decisions.

As for people being “right wing reactionaries” – that again is something I have not seen at all here. Can you point me to any specific examples that back up your assertion?

Might I ask you why you, personally, have not done this? You claim to have just as much information as I have. You do not need my permission, nor endorsement to do what you are claiming to be the right thing.

I, personally, don’t believe “O’s” story to be truthful. If I genuinely believed it, I would report it in a heartbeat – not out of malice of any desire to harm “O” but rather out of a desire to protect others who may be at risk from “O”.

And you are? Yet you want me to call in an investigation because of your own muddled convictions.

Nope, of course I’m not – which is why I would never leave the decision up to myself. If I genuinely believed it was a true story, I would turn the information over to the proper authorities so they could make the determination as to whether and how to proceed. I recognize that I am not in any position, legally, morally, or ethically, to make such determinations myself.

I have never suggested that you ought to report something on the basis of my convictions, nor do I appreciate you suggesting that my convictions are “muddled”. With all due respect, what seems muddled is your interpretation of what I and others have written.

People here pretend that a 12 year old should be dragged in front of the courts and sentenced as an adult.

Nope, nobody has suggested this. You are grossly misinterpreting what others have written. Furthermore, as you are well aware, “O” is an adult now – and so even if he were “dragged in front of the courts” (which nobody has advocated) it would be as an adult, not as a 12 year old. That said, nobody has actually advocated that “O” or that any other specific person be “dragged in front of the courts”. What people have suggested is that the proper authorities ought to be notified so they can decide whether or not any action needs to be taken, be that further investigation, or be that nothing.

I am not the one claiming that a twelve year old, who has further endured two and a half years of tortuous grooming prior, can be held culpable.

theo, I know you are clever enough to understand nuance. Nobody else, that I have seen, has declared that “O” can or should be held culpable. What people are saying is that IT IS NOT FOR US TO DECIDE whether or not he can or should be held responsible. That is not your decision to make, that is not my decision to make. That decision is best left in the hands of those with the proper resource and experience, not to mention legal authority, to make such determinations.

Please acknowledge that you can understand the distinction, because if you cannot (or will not) then there is no point in even attempting any further discussion. This has been explained by numerous people in numerous different ways but you seem determined to stick with your mischaracterizations and misinterpretations no matter what may come.